The Red Road (11 page)

“Just before the girls start
getting tits,” Roland grinned.

We all laughed at that.

“Do you play Stormbridge at all?”
Tim asked.

I looked to the others at the table,
seeing the uncertain expressions on their faces. I had never heard of
Stormbridge.

“I don’t think so ...?”
Armitage said.

“They’re in Kent,” Roland
said.

“Oh, I don’t think we travel
that far for our matches,” I said. “Usually just Sussex, Surrey,
and Berkshire.”

“So, it’s okay for you to get
into a relationship, then?” Armitage asked.

“Sure, as long as it doesn’t
interfere with your work, then you’re okay.”

“And the teachers don’t mind you
snogging or anything?” Wild asked.

Tim frowned, thinking of how best to
answer the question. “Yes and no. As long as you’re not doing it
where it’s obvious, if that makes any sense? They say the last
thing they want is to be showing prospective families around the
school and seeing us with our tongues stuck down each other’s
throats.”

“And your hand up her skirt,”
Armitage smirked.

“That’s a definite no,” Roland
said, finishing what was left of his chips. He glanced in the
direction of the servers, trying to get an idea of what was left and
considering going up for seconds, if he was allowed.

“You been caught?” I asked.

“Not me,” he answered. Tim
remained suspiciously quiet on that point.

“Being seen snogging out in
the open is bad for the school’s rep,” Roland finished.

“That’s the same reason we get
given for not smoking,” Sam said.

“What happens with you if you get
caught smoking?” another of the Mayfield boys, who had, up until
that point, been concentrating on eating, asked.

“We get fined about twenty-five
quid, and they send a letter home to our parents,” Wild said
bitterly.

“Same here,” our hosts said,
nodding to one another.

“Actually, I think it’s
thirty-five or forty now,” the previously silent one added.

“Not sure,” Tim said.

“It’s worse if we get caught
with a porno,” Kerry Oldman, one of our team’s wingers, said.
“They fine you, and then send a letter
and
the magazine
home.”

“They send the
magazine
home?” our hosts exclaimed. “Shit! That’s not good! I don’t
think that’s ever happened here. Has that happened to you?”

“Several times,” Oldman
chuckled. “Not that my dad cares; he’s just happy to get back the
part of his collection I nicked off him.”

I chuckled while our hosts gaped, as
they tried to fathom what Oldman was openly implying. Kerry often
made me laugh. He was the self-confessed Porn King of St
Christopher’s, having smuggled enumerable qualities of magazines
and films (in one case hardcore) into the school, ever since the
summer term of his first year. He had no problem with other boys
knowing about his habit, but would attempt to keep it well hidden
from the teachers. I was sure they knew about it, too, but they
apparently always had problems catching him. The times he had been
caught, he was exceptionally blasé about it. Despite the quip, I had
to wonder what his parents really thought about him. Hell, for all I
knew, perhaps they actually worked in the adult entertainment industry.

“So, do you do dance nights with
girls’ schools?” Tim asked. “One of the other schools said that
they do.”

“We don’t get to do that until
next year, when we get into the sixth form,” Sam answered. “We
get to drink beer then, too.”

“But when you do get the dances,
the teachers practically walk around with a metre stick all night and
make sure you stay a certain distance apart from the girls,” Wild
added bitterly. “I think Handjob gets really pissed if he sees you
so much as holding hands, too.”

“Wait, you get to drink beer next
year?” Tim asked. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen, sixteen,” Sam said.

Tim looked a little baffled. “How
are you allowed to drink beer when you’re sixteen?”

“Oh, it’s a special agreement
with the local council when we get into the sixth form,” I informed
him. “We can’t actually drink until we’re seventeen, and even
then we’re not allowed to buy it. We have to get someone who’s
eighteen to do it for us.”

“But how?” Roland asked, still
understandably confused. “You’re under eighteen.”

“Oh, it’s completely legal,”
Sam said. “You’re not allowed to buy beer in this country until
you’re eighteen, but they let you drink it when you’re seventeen.
They give us cider at house parties when we’re sixteen, too.”

“You’re American?” Tim asked
Sam. He had clearly picked up on Sam’s subconscious insertion of
the phrase ‘this country’ into what he had said.

“From Texas,” Sam nodded.

“You can’t drink until you’re
... twenty-one over there, right?”

“Really?” I asked. It was the
first I had heard of it.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “That’s
why I’m glad to be over here. I’m not going to go back home if I
can help it.”

“So, what happens here if you get
caught fucking?” Armitage finally asked the one question that was
at the forefront of all of our minds.

“We get expelled,” the
once-quiet boy said bluntly.

“What?” the St Christopher’s
side of the table erupted at once. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” the boy said,
finishing his plate and pouring himself some orange juice, offering
the jug to everyone else after he had done so. “They don’t like
that at all. They tell you when you start here not to do it. ‘Sexual
practices between pupils are forbidden and will result in immediate
rustication’,” he added, taking a gulp of his juice and sounding
like he was quoting the school rules precisely.

“What if you’re doing it outside
of term?” I asked.

“Oh, well that doesn’t matter,”
Tim said. “They can’t tell you what not to do when you’re at
home. They just don’t want you to do it when you’re here.”

“Has anyone been caught? Recently,
I mean?”

“It doesn’t happen as often as
you’d think,” Tim said, looking to the two others at the table,
who shook their heads. “I seem to remember it happening a lot when
I first started, but that could’ve just been something said to
scare us. One of the sixth formers got caught early last year,
though. I remember that a girl got pregnant once and had to leave.
One of the third years left around the same time, so we think he
might’ve knocked her up. That was ages ago, though. But otherwise,
no. I think only two or three have ever been expelling for it since
I’ve been here. Just don’t get caught.”

“I’m not sure where you could go
to do it, to be honest,” I said, my mind wandering and thinking
back on all the places we had passed. Of course, there would be
plenty of places that I didn’t know about, having only seen a
fraction of the school and what the grounds had to offer. I was still
somewhat staggered by the size of the place. It was easily twice as
big as St Christopher’s.

“Classrooms, after midnight. The
sports complex, if they’ve forgotten to lock it,” Tim said.

“Some of the science labs,”
Roland said. “The woods, if it’s not too cold. Your own room, if
you’re a sixth former and a lot of people are away for the weekend,
so no one can hear. Well after midnight is a good idea, in that case,
too.”

“Sometimes even if you’re not a
sixth former, your dormitory is empty and you can get across the quad
without being seen,” the previously silent boy said. “Sometimes
even if the dorm isn’t that empty and you won’t wake anyone. The
toilets, if you’re sure no one is going to come in ...”

I sat there in silence for a moment,
as did all my team-mates, slightly flabbergasted by what our hosts
had just said.

“You seem to know a lot on the
subject,” Armitage eventually grinned at them.

Our hosts said nothing, and merely
grinned back.

~ ~ ~

The conversation eventually
transitioned to more routine shop talk – comparing facilities,
subjects, rules, teachers, and other such things. Usually, I would
pay little attention, more interested in filling my belly that would
be growling out for food after finishing a game. But today felt
different somehow.

I discovered that Tim was planning
an escape much like my own, planning on attending a sixth form
college in London, so he could concentrate on his preparations for
his law degree. He figured that he would establish better contacts in
London, and that would springboard him higher and faster towards
achieving rapid success. I made a number of mental notes as Tim
spoke, and by the time everything was done and we were getting back
on the coach, I had a slightly better idea of what I wanted to do
with my life. All I had to do was get through the next two and a half
terms at St Christopher’s.

Something told me, however, that it
wasn’t just my GCSEs that I would need to survive.

Chapter Eight

T
he
autumn term continued at a steady pace, the discovery on the Red Road
that day in late September fading into the background as we all
focused on our coursework and preparations for the mock GCSE exams,
coming the next term. The last I heard of the murder incident was
that the police were following up on certain leads, but the case
wasn’t linked to anyone or anything in particular. No motive had
been established, but it was unlikely to ever occur again. Don’t
worry about it, we were all told. I had long since decided not to.

Other than planning on working
somewhere in London and doing my degree there, I still had no idea of
what I wanted to do for a career, or at university, or even A-Levels
for that matter. I knew I should get a handle on that soon, or else
my dreams of living at home and attending a sixth form college would
remain just that – dreams.

As the autumn turned to winter, the
clocks went back and the temperature began to plummet, I found myself
spending more and more time inside, either hanging around with Sam
and Baz in the dorms they were looking after, or visiting friends in
other houses. Not all were as welcoming as others, especially if a
large number of the Clique had decided to congregate there for the
evening and find obnoxious ways in which to entertain themselves. And
while St Christopher’s did offer a number of common rooms and TV
rooms, these would offer little privacy for talking. Thankfully, I
had other avenues of retreat.

Carson Young was one of the lower
sixth with whom I got on fairly well. I don’t remember exactly how
we met, since we were both in different houses and different years,
and Carson hadn’t attended the junior school. It may have been due
to us both being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being caught
doing something that we shouldn’t have by a teacher and being
given a ludicrous punishment to perform together. It could even have
been because we had both been on the
Murga List
and had bonded
over the experience. I doubted that, however. Whenever I had had to
endure that grossly sadistic punishment, my focus had always been on
keeping my profile low and getting it over and done with as soon as
possible.

Carson was something of a loner in
his year, not really seeming to fit in anywhere in particular and
generally enjoying his own company. This was somewhat reflected in
the room he had been assigned for his time in the lower sixth, being
partway up one of the disused bell towers in the school. The bell
itself had been removed, an array of electronic devices put in its
place, accessed via a stairway in the corner of his room, leading up
to a locked door. What the devices did I had no idea, and neither did
Carson. He told me that on occasion some of the staff or workmen
would enter his room to inspect the devices, before locking up again.
I had only seen past that locked door once, sneaking up behind one of
the workmen. I had been shooed away quickly.

Carson’s room was enormous, two to
three times larger than any of the other sixth form rooms in the
school. Even the head boy’s room, which I had only ever glimpsed
once or twice, wasn’t quite as big as this. It was nice, as there
was plenty of space to accommodate those who came to visit.

~ ~ ~

“The Belfry’s got a full house
tonight, then?” Sam said, as he came in. I had told him I was
heading to Carson’s room earlier. He had stayed behind in Butcher to finish
some work, before joining the rest of us.

There were six of us in Carson’s
room that evening, scattered about in a number of different places –
Baz and Dave on chairs; Rory on the stairs, leading to the locked
door; Carson himself on a sofa chair, that had apparently always
lived in the room; and Rob and Marvin on his bed. Sam looked about
for a time, trying to decide where to settle, before sitting down on
Carson’s desk, pushing some of his work aside.

“Sam, I’ve just been telling
these guys that you can’t all skive off here after prayers
tonight,” Carson warned him.

“Why not?” Sam asked.

“Haven’t you heard? Benny’s
really pissed off today. One of the newspapers has reported about the
murder.”

“Shit, how did they find out?
They’ve been trying to keep that quiet.”

“Well, how do you think? Someone’s
parents told them,” Baz said.

“Yes, that’s obvious, Baz,
mate,” Sam responded in his best attempt at a cockney accent. “But
who would’ve said that?”

“Doesn’t really matter, does
it?” Carson said. “It was bound to come out sooner or later.
Basically, if you see the headmaster, don’t talk to him and avoid
making eye contact.”

“Have you got a copy of the
newspaper it was in?” Sam asked.

Carson produced the newspaper. He
had a lot of newspapers in his room, mostly broadsheets, as well as
the
Financial Times
. Despite him telling me about the report,
I hadn’t asked to see it. I joined Sam as he took the newspaper
from Carson, seeing the article. It wasn’t a large piece, only a
few paragraphs and taking up a small section of a page. It was
something that could easily be missed, as it did not draw a lot of attention.
The most important thing for most papers at the moment was the
recession, which had started late last year. Some were predicting
that it would end sometime around Christmas next year, but others
were figuring that it could last until at least 1993. Unemployment,
depression, rioting, and substance abuse were still on the rise.