Lord Dismiss Us (35 page)

There was absolute silence down the Hall. Ma Crab had come up the two steps and through the door-– head down and hands behind her back – and – yes – she was accompanied. The Butcher walked proudly beside her, with the Head following behind.

Gosh, they were having the cheek, the nerve, to bring him in! Guest of Honour. Was he aware of the effect . . . of the horrible atmosphere? He was smiling. He looked delighted with himself. But the Head, behind, was putting on a show; his face decidedly redder, his chin up, and the corners of his mouth pulled right down to show defiance, determination, authority. . . . He held his morta
r
board higher against his chest than usual; almost at his neck.

The trio stood together. The Head was saying Grace when Carleton spotted something wrong down the Hall. There was a master missing from the head of one of the tables. He inspected them all and realised it was Ashley. Why? Had something happened? What had the Butcher meant? What had it to do with him?

Lloyd was serving oxtail soup.

‘Oh, no. Oh God no.’

Rowles put his tweed elbows down on the problem on his desk, and cupped his hands over his ears. It was a time of mercy . . . almost of bliss . . . when the creatures were silenced by Rest.

Now it was ruined.

‘I beg of you, my dear fellow. Not this time. No more crusades. No, please.’

‘You’ve heard?’ Ashley said, closing the door behind him.

The Doctor sighed deeply.

‘Your absence at lunch was noted.’

‘I imagine you ate a hearty meal.’

Raindrops peppered the small window, making the Doctor feel more thoroughly trapped than usual.

‘I asked if you’ve heard.’

‘Of course.’

‘This little jack-in-office who employs a pugilist with a stethoscope to determine sin and dispatch the sinners – who will never forget it, never! It’s done with your support, is it?’

Rowles lowered his hands and looked up for the first time. There was something odder than usual about Ashley. He had run his fingers through his hair so vigorously that it stood on end in several places. But there was something even odder than that.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Sit down, man, you’ll drive me crackers marching around.’

Ashley fell into the chair by the fire, and worked at his hair so that it looked even worse.

‘No?’ Ashley said. ‘What do you mean “no”? You’ve opposed it?’

‘Not since you heard me before. It’s not in my power to do more. It’s extreme, I grant you. He needs quick results. He wants to impress. I don’t care for the method, but I think we may have been getting slack. I’m beginning to think so.’

‘I pity you, Rowles.’

‘That’s kind of you, but I don’t require it. No thank you.’

Rowles put his pipe between his teeth, preparatory to lighting it, and took it out again.

‘Have you been drinking, Ashley?’

‘It’s sometimes necessary, to make hypocrisy endurable.’

‘I’m afraid you can’t do it and be a schoolmaster.’

Rowles lit the pipe.

‘It’s arrant nonsense to tell me you’re incapable of any more,’ said Ashley. ‘You could have gone to the Board.’

‘The Headmaster is well supported. And, curiously enough, it is my duty to support him. But I don’t expect
you
to understand that.’

‘Not when duty conflicts with your own honour, no. Never.’

‘You’re beginning to make me extremely angry, Ashley.’

‘Good. Just tell me what you think. Just tell me. I’d be very interested.’

‘You don’t give an arsehole what I think.’

Ashley crossed his legs, and tensed his nostrils, and seemed to the Doctor more mad than drunk.

‘You believe these are the aberrations of a sickly, shuttered community.’

‘I believe nothing of the kind. My life is the evidence of that.’

‘You believe they’re aberrations.’

‘I believe they’re childish.’

‘Juliet was fourteen. Romeo of an age with these people. Can you not conceive of the possibility of present passion and present poetry?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, man. Go away and sober up. And don’t raise your voice at me, like a good fellow. At any rate, not when talking balderdash.’

They looked at each other directly, for some moments. The Doctor sighed.

‘They must be led, Ashley, in this as in Mathematics. They must grow. That’s all. They must grow. That is our duty.’

‘Grow? Grow? But you’re still Rowles of the Sixth!’ shouted Ashley, hitting the arm of his chair.

There was an unpleasant silence.

‘You’d better take that back.’

‘Very well. It was unkind. But. . . .’

‘Growing up is your problem, Ashley, not mine. If you go on the way you’re going you’ll find yourself marrying a young barmaid when you’re fifty.’

Rowles was shocked by his own words. Ashley sensed it.

‘Ah, that’s better. I like that. I like a little spite. Against an old friend. At least it’s open. No hypocrisy. At least it shows feeling.’

‘That’s true,’ said Rowles heatedly. ‘You like all feelings, good or bad. You gave yourself up to the sewer of the emotions some years ago, and you haven’t grown out of it. Indeed, it’s destroying you.’

Each silence was the more painful.

‘Will you have a cup of tea?’ the Doctor said.

‘No. Listen, Rowles, I didn’t come here to discuss you or me, but others. . . .’

‘I think you
do
care about others, Ashley, I’ll grant you that. Even too much. It’s one of the most dangerous of all the emotions. It’s not only conceit and self-indulgence. It is falsely based. You are apt to suffer more than the so-called victim. Because you cannot possibly experience what the other experiences.’

‘But I can, I can! I was here, blast you!’

‘Perhaps you should not have been. At any rate, you speak for a minuscule minority.’

‘How can you know that? How can you possibly know that?’

‘By observation.’

‘Pah!’ Ashley said. ‘I know your observation. Evasion is the right word. Just let’s get back to what’s being done. Let’s not evade that. I’ll tell you what’s being done. Tenderness is being turned into shame. The mystery of another presence is being written out as sin. War is being declared upon imagination. And this villainy, this probably irreparable harm, is being done by a pugilist with a cast-iron ego. And you are permitting it.’

The Doctor leant forward and knocked his pipe out on an ashtray. His hand was shaking a little.

‘The capacity to love and dream is being decreed a loathsome thing,’ Ashley said. ‘Perhaps for someone’s lifetime. And you are permitting it.’

‘You come of a theatrical family . . .’

‘Christ, Rowles, is that all you have to say? Is that all you have to say?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Then damn you!’

Ashley jumped up and moved to the door.

‘There is a treasure of infinite worth, Ashley, and it’s called detachment.’

‘Oh no. No, please. Don’t make me sick.’

‘By the way, this damn thing has been lying in the Common Room for the past three days.’

He took the envelope from his pocket and handed it to Ashley, who saw the Italian stamp.

‘Find your own garden and cultivate it, man, for God’s sake,’ said Rowles. ‘And find it soon.’

Ashley went out and slammed the door.

Rowles sat unhappily for some minutes. The most unlikely fact was suddenly revealed to him: he was fond of this extraordinary bird. He tried, and could think of no one else, except the Old Man who was dead, for whom he felt this feeling.

But he had never been given to analysing others, or himself, much below the surface. And he was soon contentedly at work again on his problem.

Ashley was glad that they were all immured: he was aware that he was not walking steadily, and he banged against one of the lockers in the corridor. He went out into the streaming rain without being aware of it; and along to the New Buildings and up to his room, with a dark and alarmingly strong sense of apartness and desolation. He sat on the bed, and saw that the soaking envelope was still in his hand. He opened it and took out a wet, flimsy piece of paper. On it was written – ‘Dear old friend, It seems strange to me, but my sixth sense tells me that you are not well or that you are in difficulties. Please let me know as soon as possible if I am wrong. Yours very affectionately, Paolo.’

He lowered the letter, and felt tears mixing with the rain on his cheeks.

‘Jolly good,’ said the Beatle. ‘That’ll come along nicely.’

Carleton relaxed a little, and moved away from the piano, surprised that he had been able to sing at all on this dreadful, unforgettable day.

It was cold in the large end room of the Music Building. It seemed to be all windows, lashed by wind and rain. Only the Beatle’s good cheer kept them going. The twelve stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at words and music in his illegible hand. His black hair was thick and long over his coat collar. It was the only reason for his nickname. His music was of another sort: a sort that the School had always loved. A few of Clinton’s artists had tried to introduce guitars and modern noises, but nobody cared for it.

Nicky had moved in beside him. Their arms had touched. Nobody knew. McIver was there, looking terrible. Naylor was there too. Without the Beatle it would have been intolerable.

‘Now that we’re all here,’ said the Beatle, spinning round on his piano-stool, and putting his hands up to his mouth, together, as if in prayer. ‘I’d better sketch out for you what “Peter Piper” is all about. We haven’t time for much more today, I’m afraid. Well, let’s see. . . . We’re at Little Dingley-on-the-Marsh. Rousing opening Chorus – “At Little Dingley-on-the-Marsh, where days are fair, and never harsh. . . .” A village . . . in the Oxford area. Our vicar, the Reverend Arthur Cecil Sinclair – you, Naylor – is a widower with a daughter, Alice – you, Allen – who is engaged to an Oxford undergraduate named Percy Fenwick – you, Caldicott.

‘Percy arrives to stay at the vicarage – we have a nice little croquet scene, with real balls – bringing his mother, a widow named Matilda – you, McIver, and a fellow undergraduate, on a scholarship from Canada, called Peter Piper – you, Carleton.

‘Peter is a kind of clean, outdoor, healthy specimen – the sort of chap we’d all like to be. Alice gradually falls in love with him. You have this rather lovely thing with Allen, Carleton. Would you like to try it with me? Sorry to put you on the mat again, but you do have the leading role.’

Carleton leant over the Beatle’s head, which moved from side to side as the Beatle sang with enthusiasm –

‘Come with me – to Canada.

Come and see the magic of a prairie sky.

See the snowflakes fall,

Hear the coyotes call.

Come with me – to Canada.

When you fill your lungs with air – in Canada,

You will feel a millionaire – in Canada.

So let us not delay,

Let us make our way.

Come with me – to Canada,

Today!

‘Well done. I’m afraid my writing is abominable. I’m having twelve copies printed. However, Alice doesn’t go yet,’ said the Beatle, spinning round. ‘Oh dear me, no. We have Percy to worry about. Well, it so happens that in our fête scene . . . rather fun this. . . .’ The Beatle swung back and was playing and singing with verve –

‘Though it rain,

Though it pour,

Though the lightning flash and thunder roar,

Our English fêtes are fun.

Yes, fun!

An Englishman’s fête is fun.

The pram race may not be decorous,

‘And so on and so on. As I was saying, it happens that a young lady arrives called the Honourable Priscilla Wainwright – you, Stoddart Major. She has known Percy at Oxford and she means trouble. Well, to cut to the end, she gets her man. And all is happy there.

‘But the vicar still thinks it’s his daughter, Alice, that Percy loves. And you have this catchy one, Naylor. Come along. Vicar to Percy –

‘Feminine society,

Conducive to sobriety,

Leads men straight to the al-tar.

So beware,

Take good care,

Choose the one beyond compare,

And never, ne-ver fal-ter.

‘Good, good! Again!’

Yes, Naylor was singing well. Nothing was troubling him.

Carleton moved close and whispered to McIver – ‘What happened?’

‘I said what you told me.’

‘Did he believe you?’

‘I don’t know.’

Carleton glanced at Nicky.

‘Did you get it?’

(McIver was listening, but it didn’t seem to matter now).

‘Yes.’

‘Has he sent for you?’

‘No.’

‘Splendid!’ the Beatle said. ‘However, our vicar is not so safe himself. Matilda Fenwick, Percy’s mother, has this. . . . Where are you, McIver?’

‘Here, Sir.’

‘Come along then –

‘I’m in love with a clergyman,

Named Arthur Cecil Sinclair.

And my little grey-headed clergyman

Is in love with me, I declare.

If he should ask me to marry him,

I’d be delighted to go.