Lord Dismiss Us (6 page)

‘Watch out!’ Carleton heard behind him, and he turned and saw the squat blond figure of Sexy Sinnott, enveloped in his big Sexy Sinnott sweater, coming up on a run of absurd length. He wore a furious expression, and hurled the ball down the matting at Allen.

It was the first possible half-volley, and suddenly Allen had moved out and the ball raced between them along the ground and away across the field to the far side where it sprang back from the netting.

‘Nice one, boy!’ said Jimmy Rich.

‘Shit,’ said Sinnott.

Carleton felt delight. It greatly surprised him. Sinnott was waddling away across the field. He had wide and very flexible hips under the thick folds of the sweater.

A perfect late cut. A leg glide. A hook to square leg. Another straight drive. ‘Get over it, boy. That’s it, that’s it.’

‘Carleton’s not bowling.’

Sinnott was back.

It was true.

‘He is now,’ he said, and bowled the same leg break that had defeated Sinnott. It was driven low and hard into the net.

He felt Rich’s hand on his shoulder, and heard a murmur in his ear.

‘You’ve found us a cricketer, me lad.’

‘I have?’ thought Carleton.

Chapter Six

Dr Rowles and The Pedant came walking away from the reed-filled lake. A worn path in the grass went curving up the slope, round the cricket-field which stood out above them like the prow of an aircraft-carrier; with its protective netting silhouetted against the blue sky. (If anyone hit a six over it, the fielder took ages to recover it. Many balls had disappeared into the lake).

They were a well-matched pair of walkers. Roly’s great round head came up to The Pedant’s thin shoulders. The Pedant, or Mr Milner, was aged fifty-three, and Rowles was seventy-two. They had addressed each other by their surnames for twenty-three years. (The third Housemaster, The Cod, was younger, and straightforward, and they avoided him). In absolute contrast to Rowles, The Pedant had been wearing the same brown coat, with padded elbows, for at least ten years. He looked so like a schoolmaster that one might have suspected it of being done by cunning design.

That he possessed a pointed nose and spectacles, unaltering short-cut-hair, and an almost perpetual frown, fitted the picture. That testiness – ‘You wretched child’ – was his well-nigh invariable emotion, did too. But a startling gift for obscene jokes and verses combined unexpectedly with sudden critical, though devotional, outbursts concerning the Church of England in the local press. And what on earth had The Pedant been doing in intimate conversation with the young barmaid in the Crown and Anchor Hotel in Marston?

Everything Dr Rowles had to say to The Pedant was said, frequently with good reason, as if it was something to be passed on to no other quarter – and might easily be overheard by someone lurking in the grass. He spoke with bent head, in a low murmur, out of the corner of his mouth, and Milner had difficulty in hearing.

‘By the way, Milner . . . have you heard about our cynic, Carleton’s summing-up of the New Administration?’

‘Indeed, no. What does your prize exhibit have to say?’

‘
“A tough nut” . . . tee-hee!’

Flushing a little, and his face alight with humour, Rowles raised his pale blue eyes quickly to catch Milner’s certain enjoyment.

‘The boy is imbued with the gift of exaggeration, Rowles,’ said The Pedant, in his dry, constrained voice.

Rowles darted a look to the left, and to the right. But there was no one in sight.

His question was almost inaudible.

‘Is that your considered opinion, Milner?’

‘Are you referring to the subject or object?’ said The Pedant, who was a painstaking, precise, and exceptional Latin teacher.

‘Ah, come off it, Milner!’ said Rowles, with thinly disguised irritation.

‘Well, I’d say it was a little too early to tell, Rowles. The good man is due some surprises. That much is certain.’

‘Tee-hee!’ (He loved Milner’s dryness).

‘How about you?’

Rowles took the return poorly. He made his particular motion of uncertainty. He brought up his right hand and with the frequently washed, perfectly cut and rounded pink thumbnail scratched his right temple. He kept his other fingers folded well away from this strangely delicate motion, with whose implications The Pedant was well acquainted.

‘One has scarcely had the opportunity as yet. . . .’

‘The scholastic record is unappealing,’ said The Pedant, who was now impatient in
his
turn. ‘Or, rather, it seems to reside with the female line.’

Appalled and delighted by Milner’s daring, Rowles dropped his mouth open and looked in all directions. They were passing the Nets, but no one could possibly have heard. Carleton was batting. He liked very much to watch, and would have paused, but Milner was only mildly interested.

‘That’s more your line than mine, Milner.’

He had caught the infection: this was a daring one! At least, he was not absolutely certain whether Milner knew that that curious oaf, Merryman, had seen him, last term, through the Saloon Bar door of the Crown and Anchor, and spread the information at once. He himself had heard it with amazed horror, but had dismissed it as a quickly passing aberration. Milner must have been ordering ginger beer, of which he was inexplicably fond.

‘The meaning of that escapes me, Rowles,’ said the Pedant. ‘But there’s an odd example ahead.’

Rowles looked up. At the top of the hill, near the Music Building, the daughter, Lucretia, was leaning against a tree in dirty blue jeans, holding something white to her front.

She was starting at a nearby school next week, by the mercy of God. The Doctor thought this and then saw another figure, going across the drive in front of the Head’s House and approaching the girl.

He half covered his mouth with his cupped hand, so that the Pedant, frowning testily, had to bend his head to catch a word.

‘Oh Lord,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘There’s that unfortunate Ashley. I’ll have to say something to him, Milner.’

Lucretia, who was nursing a white rabbit, saw the peculiar man approaching and knew him for the master who had been in the Study and had interfered with the Fire Practice and angered her mother. (She had sent him to tell her father). He walked with a slight bounce, with his hands in his pockets; his face was sort of screwed up, as if he was going to sniff; and altogether he struck her as what she had come to know from a lifetime spent in Prep Schools as an Absent-Minded Professor. But the funny thing was that he wasn’t so terribly old.

He stopped abruptly. He really
was
absent-minded, and had only just seen her! He inclined his head in a little bow, and with his jawbones all tight, said: ‘Good afternoon.’

‘
’Lo,’ she said, confused by all this, and holding the rabbit closer, to protect herself rather than the rabbit.

‘I like the rabbit,’ he said. ‘What’s it called?’

‘Persephone,’ she replied.

It was clear he knew nothing about rabbits, because if he did he would have said ‘What’s she called?’ or, better still, ‘What’s he called?’; better, because she could have corrected him. All the same, she didn’t hate him. His blue eyes gave her the idea there was some kind of joke between them, and he made her feel almost the same age.

‘You amaze me.’

‘It was my mother’s idea. Some . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘Something to do with being let out of the Underworld or a burrow or something.’

She had never said so much to a strange adult in her life. And it was worth it. His whole face smiled, and he was different.

‘Ingenious,’ he said, scratching his hair, and nearly laughing. (She had no idea what that meant). ‘Your mother is a clever woman.’

If so, why was he laughing? He must be making fun. She began to hate him.

‘She’s taught me everything.’

‘Everything?’

She knew exactly what that meant, and
did
hate him.

‘Yes,’ she said, and gave him the straight look that had terrified scores of small boys.

It didn’t terrify Ashley. It filled him with a sudden revulsion.

‘I see. Will she teach you now?’

‘She hasn’t time and I’m too old. I’m going to Day School next week.’

(He still could tempt her to speech).

‘I think you’ll like that.’

He was trying to get round her – but he didn’t do it very well. He merely gave away the fact that he thought it would be better than her mother.

‘Why do the boys go in there?’

Ashley followed her glance, across the drive, towards the Music Building. It was pre-War, and a Memorial to an Old Boy, a gifted musician who had been killed; an expensive donation by his parents, which the Bishop on the Board of Governors had ceremoniously named the Hugheson-Green Building. But nobody could remember that; so the Memorial was called the Music Building.

‘To practise the piano, I believe.’

There were eight rooms off a corridor, just big enough for a piano and chair, and one big room with a piano at the end.

‘Two boys went into Number
2
,’ she said, and then counted along, nodding with her head. ‘And two boys went into Number
7
.’

Their eyes met. She gave him the Scare Look, and was thrilled to see him all tensed up and in trouble.

‘They must be playing duets,’ he said.

She smiled, with contempt: she had disposed of this thought herself. It was something bad, and she wasn’t sure what, and she couldn’t think how to find out: the little windows were too high up.

‘Why can’t we hear any music?’ she asked, playing her trump card.

‘The rooms are soundproof,’ he replied, sharply and with truth.

She was taken aback, but no one could have guessed. They had become, in a matter of minutes, engaged in a duel of an intensity that astonished them both, and she had never suffered defeat, except by her mother.

She put her chin up, almost in imitation, and said: ‘My mother told me to keep a watch out. She said to report anything to her.’

This absolutely knocked him out. His face was all tight, and she would have giggled if she hadn’t been a bit frightened.

‘She did, did she?’

His jawbones were working again.

She stroked Persephone’s white head with one finger, saying: ‘They can’t be playing duets. There’s only one chair in each room.’

There was no answer, and she scarcely dared look up.

‘You’re a master. Why don’t
you
go and see?’

Ashley moved forward with the maniac intention of tearing the rabbit from her hands, but there was a loud and nervous cough, and he turned and saw Rowles and Milner coming up the slope.

‘I’ll see
you
another time,’ he said, and spun away.

‘Tell
them
,’ she called after him, in one last daring fling that sent her heart scampering away under the rabbit.

It was necessary to get past these two, and on. Milner he had never managed to approach. They were
not
made for each other. Rowles he rather admired, even with a feeling of affection. But while he suspected that both sentiments were returned, it was done in an intolerable manner: Rowles viewed him like an exhibit.

They halted before him.

‘Ahh . . . !’ said Rowles, with his hands in his coat pockets jingling money and pushing up the thick tweed flaps. Going up and down on his soft heels he studied Ashley – the latter thought – not merely as a case, but as one who provoked both apprehension and pity. ‘Well, at least the sun shines upon our enterprise.’

‘Yes. But we appear to have inherited a child from outer space.’

‘I beg your pardon, Ashley?’

Ashley nodded his head backwards.

‘What has she been saying?’ asked The Pedant, leaning eagerly forward with a light sparking in his eyes.

‘It’s not repeatable,’ said Ashley, and he felt suddenly uncomfortable. Why not?

The Music Building was an awkward ten yards away. The nauseating girl hadn’t moved.

‘Ahh . . . well, we won’t inquire further. Listen here, Ashley . . .’ Rowles lowered his head, in obvious embarrassment, so that Ashley could only see the thin hairs on top, and moved his highly polished toecap and studied it. ‘I was most distressed to hear your news. Damn bad luck!’

This was said strongly, and Ashley was touched.

‘Yes. Very,’ said The Pedant; which was easier to answer.

‘Thank you, gentlemen. I think I’ll survive.’

‘I hope so, Ashley. I hope so.’

Ashley listened and looked for a glint of the familiar Rowles humour, but to his mild shock found none.

‘See you later, gentlemen,’ he said, awkwardly raising a hand and moving on.

What had
that
meant?

Rowles couldn’t have been serious.

But there was a lesser sense in which the problem of survival did have meaning. He was making a most unhappy debut with the Crabtree family.

Chapter Seven

The eminent Victorian divine had laid it down that the Chapel was to be ‘the centre of School life.’

So it was. But not exactly in the religious sense.

On Sunday nights it was the place of assembly for this entire enclosed Community; as with lunch in Dining Hall, (but then the Chaplain stayed away), it was a time when all the protagonists, boys and Staff, were on view; the boys in white surplices; all washed, brushed and on display. Psalms and hymns, and the controlling presence of the mesmeric and incomprehensible Chaplain, completed the feeling of Theatre. They sat poker-faced, one and all – and especially the Staff – but emotions were intensified, as the sentimental melodies swelled from the organ, and love, hope, sin, misery, glory and Salvation, were proclaimed in profusion within the space of an hour.

Chapel on Sunday nights was compulsory; except for poor Jacobs, a Jew, who wandered the Quad, kicking a tennis-ball and listening to everybody else singing together within. Attendance was also required at a quarter to seven every evening before Tea, but this was only a fifteen-minute affair, with no singing and no dressing-up, and only the Master on Duty, apart from the Chaplain, was obliged to be present.