Out of Shadows (25 page)

He sighed.

“Our head pupil,” he said, “harassing local Africans at the bottle store. And workers from the village.”

His chair made a sound like grinding teeth as he leaned back.

“And the keys to the rifle room—over which you, the Captain, have responsibility—have gone missing.”

“Yes, sir.” I felt the ground falling away. I saw myself as he saw me: red faced and covered with sweat and grime.

“Do you realize how ridiculous your accusation sounds? Ivan is Head Boy, and he has proved himself to be nothing more than an exemplary example of such to me and the rest of the staff. He has helped this school tremendously, so to have you here today telling me these things . . . Well, I'm surprised. I thought you and Ivan were friends.”

“We were, sir . . .”

Slowly, he removed his glasses.

“I see. You've fallen out.”

“No, sir. I mean yes, sir, but that's not why . . .”

“These things happen between boys, Jacklin, I understand, particularly at a time of exams when pressure is high. But that is no reason to make matters worse by creating fanciful stories about the other.”

“But, sir, I'm not making it up. You're not listening. You have to believe me.”

Mr. Bullman was Headmaster and he didn't
have to
do anything unless it was the government that told him. The glasses went back on. The battle was lost.

“I'm not expecting to find anything, but I shall look into these allegations of yours,” he said. “In due course. Right now, with mere
days
to tie up preparations for Speech Day that will be engraved into the school's history, I'm too busy. In the meantime I advise you to focus on what you should realize are the most important examinations of your life.”

“But, sir . . .”

Bully threw his pen onto the desk, where it lost itself in a river of papers. Briefly, I saw official letterheads and the government coat of arms and the word SECRET stamped in big red letters.

“I am
busy
, Jacklin. I have very important matters to address, arrangements to make. If the keys to the rifle room
are
lost—not stolen or missing, lost—then recover them.”

He waved me away.

As I reached the door, he added: “You know, I am not only surprised by your appearance here today, but sorely disappointed. If you and Hascott have fallen out, then there are other ways to rectify the situation.”

I waited, but there was nothing else.

I left and found Ivan coming down the corridor toward me. He eyed me up and down.

“Jesus, you're a mess. You been playing in the dirt with your friends again, Jacko?”

His heavy shoulder clipped mine, spinning me around. I watched him saunter down to Bully's office and go in without knocking.

Half term came to release me
.

My old man met the announcement that I wouldn't be going anywhere over the whole weekend with little surprise.

“I've been meaning to ask: Whatever happened to that friend of yours?” he asked. “Ivan, I think you said his name was. And the two others. You used to talk about them all the time.”

“Exams, Dad. My studies are more important at the moment,” I explained.

“If you don't know it now you never will. What have you been doing for the last five years?” was his response.

“Dad!”

“Sorry. Just joking. Maybe you'll have time for a game of cribbage later?”

“You bet.”

I thought it would be different—better—but I felt as much a prisoner at home. More so, because at least at school there were
people to talk to, even if it wasn't about what I
wanted
to talk about any longer; here, there was only my old man and Matilda, and I couldn't tell them, so I had no one. I was alone.

A dozen times, possibly more, I picked up the phone to dial Adele's number, though could never quite turn the last digit. What was the point? She'd be with him. And what would Ivan do this time if he found out?

What
would
Ivan do?

I thought of our meeting at Mermaid's Pool and worried. I hadn't seen or heard from her since that day.

On the back of a lie about wanting to catch some movie, I took the car and drove into town, but instead of keeping straight for the center I headed toward Avondale and parked under lilac shade at the top of Adele's road, fully aware that if Ivan was around I was dead. It was a chance I was willing to take. I cut the engine and waited, heat and jacaranda pods tapping on the roof.

After two hours I saw her, a brief glimpse as her mum's Datsun Cherry emerged from the gates. Adele sat meekly in the passenger seat, head low, hair shielding her face. There was something different about her, a change, she seemed so small and fragile that I almost didn't recognize her. And when she lifted her face to slip on dark glasses was that a bruised smudge beneath her eye? Or just the light?

My fingers dug into the seat. What had he been doing?

I fired up the engine, pushed first gear, and started to follow. By the end of the road I saw what I was doing and how impossible it was. I couldn't confront her, not again.

I would have to find out another way.

“Sorry, Dad. It was a long movie.”

I turned right and headed out of town, and as fast air blasted at me through the open window I wondered for the first time:
What
exactly was I hoping to find out?

An hour later I was through the school gates and parking up outside Selous. It was locked, of course.

I walked around to Mr. Craven's front door. I didn't know if he was more surprised to see me or by the fact that I'd caught him with a cigarette in his hand. I was shocked, but I supposed teachers had to be human sometime.

I fed him a line about having forgotten a book and that I'd left my key behind, and he handed over his bunch of spares.

Inside, the bone rattle of keys echoed loudly along the corridor as I tried each one in turn. My palms were slippery. Finally, the lock turned and Ivan's door swung open. The room was dim and unwelcoming, as though it knew I shouldn't be there.

Now what?

Hurry. Hurry up, before
 . . .

. . . 
Before
 . . . ?

I went through every drawer, between every item of clothing, under every loose piece of flooring. I even reached up the chimney.

Nothing.

No rifle-room keys, and not a single piece of evidence to prove he was far from the model Head Boy he pretended to be. I stood in the middle of the room and exhaled, a part of me relieved.

As a final check, I went through his rubbish and found exactly that, and in frustration I kicked the wastepaper bin to the other end of the study. The tin clattered loudly as paper strew all over the place. I regretted the action instantly and rushed around to collect the mess, wondering if anyone had heard, wondering if Ivan would notice the difference. It was with the last piece in my hand, however, that something made me stop to look at what I was retrieving.

An envelope.

Addressed to Ivan.

With a South African stamp.

Nothing remarkable about that, it could have been from his folks. But I noticed the Nelspruit postmark and his parents were all the way down in Pietermaritzburg; they weren't anywhere near the Transvaal.

The envelope had been ripped open in a way that made me picture frantic, eager fingers. I turned it over, and the sender's details shone out in a heavy, angular hand I'd seen before.

MvH, PO Box 3447, Nelspruit,
Transvaal, South Africa
.

MvH.

Mark van Hout.

It had to be. It could only be. All this time . . .

I delved back into the trash, but of course the letter itself was nowhere to be found.

I swayed, adrift yet again. My eyes fell on the collection of toy cars the piccanins made from coat hangers and bottle tops. It had grown along Ivan's windowsill over the months. It was as though I was noticing them for the first time. You could buy toys like this anywhere, a few cents on the side of the road, but was that likely? Ivan?

I picked one up and remembered children playing down at the workers' village, and a shudder gripped me.

There was a noise.

Outside, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Dunn as they walked between the houses. Dunno glanced up and I stepped quickly out of sight. He didn't spot me and carried on walking, now moving across the grass and heading toward the Admin Block.

I left the house and made sure he was out of sight before following his trail, stopping short of the school's main building
to check the rifle room itself. Using my own spare, I released the giant padlock and checked inside for the hundredth time. Everything was still in order: all rifles present and standing correctly, all bullets accounted for. Again, I questioned if I hadn't simply mislaid or lost the keys after all, maybe Bully was right. Or maybe they were just playing with my mind. Or maybe . . .

. . . Maybe, maybe, maybe . . .

In the cool of the windowless room I slumped to the ground with my head in my hands and reminded myself repeatedly that there was only half a term left to go, fighting the other voice that told me that was still half a term to endure.

More footsteps. I sprang to my feet and got out of there, and just managed to snap the bolt shut before Miss Marimbo emerged down the steps from the dining room. She was barely a foot away when she spotted me lurking in the doorway and she startled with a small shriek. Any other teacher might have then asked why the hell I was here, over half term; Miss Marimbo just turned and walked the other way, her feet breaking into a trot.

“Miss Marimbo. It's me, Jacklin.”

She knew perfectly well who it was, though: Robert Jacklin, aka Ivan's friend, aka one of the gang. Hadn't I seen that same look on so many faces over the years?

I went after her. “Miss Marimbo.”

“Stay away from me.” Her voice was high and thin. She looked around to find we were the only two people in sight. “I'm warning you.”

“Miss?”

“What are you doing here? Is he here with you?”

“Who?” I asked flatly.

Miss Marimbo stopped.

We'd reached the Admin Block. Upstairs, Mr. Dunn appeared at the staff-room window. Naturally, he looked
surprised to see me. Miss Marimbo hovered with one hand on the door, visibly reassured.

“What are you doing here, Jacklin?” she asked again.

“Ivan and I,” I told her, “. . . we're not friends anymore.”

She seemed to relax more.

“That's not what I asked.”

“I came for something.”

“What?”

The heat of the afternoon pressed around us. We were both still conscious of Dunno's gaze. Miss Marimbo smiled up and he went away.

“I'm not sure,” I said.

Miss Marimbo began to push open the door. She opened her mouth and for a moment I thought she was going to tell me what I wanted to hear.

“You are young,” she said instead, “and I believe you're actually a decent person. Ivan? He isn't like you and, if you must know, your friendship with him always mystified me. Finish your exams, leave this place, then forget it and forget Ivan.”

She started to go.

“Wait.” I held her arm, and immediately let go again. “Has something happened? Has Ivan done something? Please, I need to know.”

And when she didn't reply, “You can do something. You can tell Mr. Bullman. The police, even.”

“Neither of whom would believe me. Me, an African woman, whom Mr. Bullman has employed as more than a maid only because he's scared the government will shut his school down. He still
treats
me as a maid.”

“But the police—”

“Are all Shona tribe. I am Matabele. If they thought I was under threat they would be happy. Police and soldiers mistreat the Matabele all the time and everyone looks the other way.”

“They wouldn't do that,” was all I could offer. “They're all . . . You're all . . .”

“Black? African? In Africa, that doesn't count for much. Please, go home.” She went inside. “If you really want to do something, forget you ever came to this school and get on with your life. It's what I shall do.”

“Whatever it is you're doing, stop it.”

My chest was thumping, so to make it easier I kept my eye on the First XI. It was the last match of the year. I'd waited all week for an opportunity when I could get him alone without actually being alone, and the edge of the cricket field was the perfect place. Masters and parents gently edged the oval.

Ivan loathed cricket. He shuffled on the bench with mild astonishment.

“What are you gibbering about now, Jacko?”

“I spoke to her.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

Ivan eased back, stretching his spine into a confident arch.

“Jesus, I thought you'd be pleased. I don't want her anymore, you can dump your muck now. She's a crap lay anyways, not that you'd know the difference.”

I struggled to keep my voice under control.

“I'm not talking about Adele. I spoke to Miss Marimbo.”

“What has
she
got to do with anything?”

I turned to him.

“She's terrified. What did you do?”

He casually cracked his knuckles.

“Marimbo needed to learn respect. Kicking
me
out of class . . . ? That sort of thing would never have happened in the Old Days.”

“She wouldn't even have been allowed to teach in a school like this in the Old Days.”

“My point exactly. What's she going to do about it anyway?”

“She can go to the police. They'd have a thing or two to say about it.”

“She wouldn't dare.”

“That's where you're wrong, because she's thinking about it.” It was a stupid thing to say. I had his full attention, but it scared me. More than that, I was scared for Miss Marimbo. “You belong in the Dark Ages.”