Lord Dismiss Us (29 page)

‘Before Lights Out he gave me a funny look, but he didn’t say anything. He was in his red dressing-gown. I was scared . . .’

Yes, an abominable little blond animal in red.

‘Carleton. . . . He put the lights out. Nothing happened. I must have been nearly asleep when. . . .’

The peace that passeth all understanding.

‘The foot of my bed is up against his. His hand came in and he took my foot and tugged it down. It was kind of fierce. And he began stroking my leg. And it wasn’t fierce at all. It wasn’t . . . like Sinnott at all. It was kind of . . . delicate. He stopped and I . . . I stroked his hand with my toes.’

If not Orders, then certainly the Stage. The Chaplain inhaled the fruit.

‘That was all. In the morning I was in the shower . . . and he must have told some of them. He must have told lies. They were making cracks. They were saying . . . how I’d got bigger, and so on. It was horrible.’

‘Yes. Yes, indeed.’

‘I couldn’t believe he’d do that. What I think is, somebody must have heard, and he
had
to make up something. So he boasted instead. He told lies.’

The child was almost in tears. Belated though it might be.

‘Charity may be your saving grace, Nicholas. It suffereth long indeed when it is extended to Master Sinnott.’

‘Maybe. Because he did it again next night.’

The Chaplain filled his nostrils.

‘I drove my toenails into his hand. Well . . . as best I could. It wasn’t easy. Anyhow, he took it away. He must have been completely surprised. Because he didn’t even seem to understand. He and Beauchamp walked past me the next day. They were laughing. Sinnott stopped for a minute and said seriously – and he seemed really puzzled – “What on earth’s the matter with
you
?
”
’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘
’Twill suffice,’ said the Chaplain. ‘Have you told Carleton this?’

‘No. I couldn’t.’

‘I think perhaps you should; though that’s outside my territory. It’s very serious that you said. . . .’ The Chaplain suffered a spasm. . . .
‘
“All right”.’

‘Yes. He was like the devil tempting me. And as well . . . I just wondered what . . . just for once . . . what it was. It’s harder to resist something you don’t even know.’

The Chaplain had always found the opposite to be true. Nevertheless, they were extremes that touched. The child was remarkable.

‘I’ve sinned, haven’t I?’

‘I think so. Mildly, Nicholas. Have you repented?’

‘Yes. . . . It was terrible to Carleton.’

‘Oh? Is that repentance?’

‘Well, I did him a wrong.’

‘But, my dear, that’s not the sin.’

‘Isn’t it?’

The boy looked him in the eyes. He felt himself challenged by an infant. It was astonishing.

‘Come now,’ he said. ‘You hope to enter the Church, don’t you?’

‘Yes. But I’m muddled. He seemed . . . I mean even Sinnott . . . he seemed . . . almost loving. I know that afterwards . . . I don’t know what I mean.’

‘There, there. Listen to me, Nicholas, it was lust. Before Confirmation, you abjure the carnal desires of the flesh. You must assure me that you do this.’

‘Yes. I do.’

‘Very well,’ said the Chaplain abruptly. ‘You’d better run along now. I’ll see you in Chapel.’

Allen stood up. He looked humbled. The Chaplain felt uneasy. He almost felt uncertain of his advice; and even more so of his role. Confessor or inquisitor?

‘And by the way, I should be very careful. Our Headmaster is not happy. Though love is no sin, it banished Mr Rich and our Matron. You are at the mercy of others – unlike myself.’

‘Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.’

Allen went out.

Sir! How unexpected, how merciless.

The Chaplain sat staring into the fire. His mood was very dark. He thought – ‘These are not children. This is not a rough draft for adulthood. Later life is a copy. These are not childish things, and they are not put away.’

They had come to the ‘realities’ – two young men, framed by the window for Lucretia’s inspection.

‘ “Her straying hairs and the smell of her – she was sweating – made a disgust rise up in him, but he could not move away.

‘ “ ‘For twenty years,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve fooled the lot of them. If you could see my little room . . . but they’ll all see it when I’m gone. I’ve two dozen glasses there. And I’ve two sets of crockery, and more of your precious mother’s jewellery than she ever remembers she had, and silver spoons, and . . .’ ” ’

Ashley was reading out their agreed final version; which was not easy to do, since it had to be extracted from a maze of alterations in two different handwritings.

‘ “Owen realised that without thinking he had lifted her case off the table in order to give it to her. She saw this, looked slyly at him, and said in her cajoling way, ‘Thank you, Master Owen.’ ”

‘ “He gave it into her hands. It was not from fear. It was as if there was something between them that could not be denied.

‘ “Julia came with the brandy, and his mother, in the voice she always used for servants, said: ‘Drink this down, Ellen, and you’ll feel better.’ ” ’

There was something strangely close to perfection, Ashley thought, in sitting beside this silent and beautiful young man, and relishing their joint creation. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘Does our last paragraph stand up?’

‘ “Owen did not reply. He left the kitchen and went above. A terrible sense of guilt had overtaken him. He had helped. He had held the case in his hands. He felt dirty and guilty. He went upstairs to where the wretched sun was still making everything bright and hot, and he ran the cold water into the basin. He put out his hands and splashed the water all over his face and hair, and he seemed to be washing away at least some of his sin. He went along the corridor and into the sitting-room. He was not crying. His face was wet and cold. On the carpet he saw the Bentley and the Alvis – Carter and McCracken. They were two bits of paper – nothing more. He walked over to them, over the green carpet, and crushed them flat with his foot, one after the other.” ’

They were quiet for a moment. Ashley murmured – ‘Yes, indeed. Well, at least he’s not bored any more. One can say that much for reality, if nothing else. Do you know E. M. Forster’s “The Longest Journey”?’

‘Yes, it’s very difficult.’

‘It’s the most interesting of them all.’

Ashley turned his head. Carleton was still looking down at the writing. With shock, and then alarm, Ashley was aware of a sharp desire to put his hand on the square back of that brown head and run it down to the brown neck inside the white collar. ‘Well,’ he was saying, in an odd voice, ‘I think that’s quite a nice little story.’

Those eyes had come round, smiling at him. Was it deliberate? Yes, it was. It was deliberate. That look was flirtation. A detestable thing. Neither hot nor cold. The boy had known his temptation. Had provoked it. He stood up abruptly, and said, almost with ferocity: ‘Make a final copy. Make two, if you can find a typewriter in this ancient academy. I’ll send it to the ‘New Arts Review’ with a covering note to my friend, the editor.’

‘Gosh! Do you mean we’d try to have it
published
?’

‘Only a fool would write for any other reason,’ said Ashley, sitting on the divan bed. ‘You’d better put your home address. They’re not too quick. You may be out in the rude world by then. Have you written anything else?’

Carleton had twisted round on the chair. Those eyes were less definable against the light. But it was undeniable, and appalling: Ashley wanted to go over and embrace the figure seated in the window.

‘No . . . except in the Mag. I’ve been keeping . . . a sort of diary, but I’m going to give that up. This is much more exciting. Making something that wasn’t there before.’

‘Even diaries do that.’

‘Gosh, that’s what
I
thought! But this is more. This is something really new.’

‘The word is “creative”, said Ashley, gazing at the carpet, and running fingers through his hair. ‘Or Art. What Owen was doing with the cars. In solitude. Until life refused to be rejected any longer.’

‘Oh? I suppose so.’

‘This little story contains quite a lot.’

Carleton felt the first shadow fall in the most wonderful hours of his life. He didn’t care to think that his story contained more than he knew. Mental effort had excited and tired them both. He thought he should leave, but didn’t know how. Half-an-hour still before the bell for Tea. Sometimes one really wanted the bells by which they lived to ring out. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. A change of subject perhaps –

‘Did you ever find the door to the dispensary?’

Carleton found he had said it like one young man to another. A little mocking. It was very odd.

‘Yes. I had forgotten my wall decoration.’

‘Given an inch, they always turn to impertinence,’ thought Ashley. ‘You’d better get along and get started on that,’ he said. ‘The sooner the better.’

‘Right.’

Carleton rose, and took his coat and tie, and at the door said –

‘I don’t know how to thank . . .’

‘None of that. Leave. Just leave.’

Carleton heard it in bewilderment. What had gone wrong? Ashley had his head in his hands. It was too difficult to understand.

‘Right,’ he said, and went out.

Ashley surrendered to self-pity.

Yes, it had been more than affection, more than tenderness. My God, it had been waiting for him. She had been right.

The illusion that it was a Michaelangelo was destroyed. It was not. It was a person. Flesh and blood, and of the same sex. The love was forbidden, and he had wanted to touch.

Carleton bounced out of the New Buildings; and Lucretia dodged behind the tree. He had recaptured the whole sense of marvel: the wonder of the afternoon. He walked on air, heading for his House, via the bogs. There was time to start the first page in the Common Room, on that awful rug. How much one could learn from older people! Seemingly from nowhere the thought came – maybe his mother had been right, after all, about the value of Mr Brownlow’s company; in spite of everything. As for Eric Ashley – this one chance afternoon with this one person had given him a life’s wonderful occupation.

Boys were standing about in groups, waiting for the bell; hungry, as ever. In one group a boy looked at him meaningfully and put his hand in his coat pocket. Who was this Junior, this kid, making signs to
him
?

Yes, the connection returned. Nicky, of course. But something had been very nearly lost.

He felt more fatherly than before.

But his heart had quickened all the same.

He felt especially bad now, because they had been going to meet that afternoon and he had cancelled it.

He passed the washroom door. There was no one in the corridor; not even Gower. He opened the locker door and put his hand in each pocket of the mackintosh.

There was no note.

He knew now that nothing was lost; because he was bereft. And alarmed. Was Nicky fooling him? It had never gone wrong before.

Again, he was conscience-stricken about the moment’s alienation. It was as if Fate and Nicky were paying him back.

‘Carleton!’

He was startled. Rowles was standing at the foot of the stairs.

‘Come here a minute.’

He followed the Doctor up the stone steps, and into his room.

‘Close the door.’

Rowles stood with his back to the fireplace, looking at him in a curiously intent way, and breathing deeply. If the Doctor could ever have been said to be in a state, he was in one now.

‘Nothing rational seems to be happening here any longer, Carleton,’ he said.

‘Oh? . . . Maybe that’s no harm, Sir.’

Rowles was too worked up even to drop his lower lip in his customary expression of surprise.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Well . . . maybe we need both. The irrational as well, I mean.’

‘Are
you
feeling all right, Carleton?’

‘Yes, indeed. I’ve had an amazing afternoon.’

‘You’re not the only one. I’ve just seen Clinton’s long-haired ladies falling about in the Quad. They stink of beer. Unfortunately, none of them is in my House, or I’d have had the arse off him. They went to the woods and took young Fitzmaurice with them. The worst of it is, I begin to wonder if the Headmaster isn’t right.’

‘In what way, Sir?’

The Doctor breathed, and stared, and evidently decided not to say something.

‘I’ve seen a lot here, Carleton. I’ve seen poor old Mr Pritchard, who taught geometry better than
I
do, dead in the bath. But I’ve never seen anything like this.’

‘Yes, Sir. What else, Sir?’

It seemed ages before Rowles was able to speak.

‘Mr Milner has proposed marriage to a barmaid, and the lady has indicated acceptance. They intend to live here.’

‘Gosh!’

The Doctor watched and waited for the total horror to be appreciated. Carleton, aware of this, and feeling inadequate, added – ‘Goodness!’

‘He didn’t need to do it, Carleton. That’s the pity and the folly of it.’

Carleton had no idea what this meant.

‘Oh.’

The Doctor had watched him keenly enough to think, ‘He’s not really concerned. These curious birds are concerned solely with themselves. They take what you give, and eagerly accept dismissal, and are gone.’

‘And what is this “amazing” afternoon you’ve been giving yourself?’

‘Not me. Eric Ashley. He’s taught me how to be a writer. For hours. I never knew. It’s the most wonderful thing. He’s the most wonderful teacher.’

‘Ashley? Ah come off it, Carleton! Ashley couldn’t teach a duck to swim.’

‘Oh,
Sir
!’

Carleton had cried out with such feeling that they were both taken aback.

Rowles was quite impressed, and puzzled. Self-centred, yes, but this curious creature had, for some reason, lately ceased to be a Cynic.

They were saved by the bell.