The Red Road (13 page)

I motioned Carson to continue. “And
if you can’t get into America?”

“I’d work for one of the banks
in London,” Carson said. “I’d like to work for Goldman Sach,
but apparently the interview process is really hard and takes
forever; they want to see you about ten times before they’ll let
you work for them. So, I think that either Lehman Brothers or Bear
Sterns would be a safer bet. Lehman isn’t as big as Bear, so
there’s plenty of room for growth. And if you get in there fast,
you can get shares and options that could be worth a fortune in about
ten or fifteen years’ time.”

Carson was sharing knowledge tonight
of things I knew little or nothing about. I’d never heard of any of
the banks he had mentioned, more common names to me being Barclays,
Lloyds, Midland, TSB (the bank that liked to say
YES!
). I
would just have to go with Carson’s explanation that they were safe
bets. And if everything Carson was saying was true, then I knew I
should take a serious look into this whole trading and economics
thing myself.

“I’ll just get into either of
those after I graduate and stay there until I’ve made enough money
to comfortably retire,” Carson added, leaning back in his sofa
chair.

“At thirty-five?” Rory joked.

“Maybe longer, if I haven’t made
enough to buy a second yacht,” Carson said with a grin. Now he was
being sarcastic.

There came a knock at the door,
causing us all to fall silent. Only a teacher or a younger boy would
knock. A prefect or other sixth former would simply barge in, not
caring at all.

“Come in,” Carson said.

The door swung open and into the
room stepped Father Thomas, ducking under the doorframe as he came.
He was a tall man, originally from somewhere in Africa. He was
somewhat intimidating to look at due to his height and what was often
confused as a persistent scowl on his face. Speaking to him, however,
one would discover that he was as harmless as a teddy bear. He also
liked to laugh a lot. Most boys knew him as
The B.F.G.
as a
result.

Father Thomas smiled warmly as he
saw us all sitting about. “It sounds like you’re all having fun
in here tonight,” he chuckled.

“We were just talking about
careers,” Carson said.

“Oh, jolly good,” Father Thomas
said. “Planning on changing the world?”

“Not as such,” I said as we
looked from one to the other. “Making plans for the future, in case
the recession never ends.”

Father Thomas nodded, then said, “I
see it’s almost time for evening prayers. Given that the headmaster
has received some rather unpleasant news today, I would suggest you
get back to your houses on time, so as not to find any reason to
further upset him.”

It was good advice. We left the
evening there, heading back to our houses to prepare for evening
prayers. Carson reminded us not to return, just in case we bumped
into the headmaster on the way back. He also had work he needed to
be getting on with. I chose to do some myself, spurred on by new
thoughts of success and potential riches to come. I slept well that
night, dreaming of lying on a mattress stuffed full of fifty-pound
notes.

Chapter Nine

I
t
wasn’t until late December that term ended, only a few days before
Christmas. We would normally finish about two weeks before, but the
discovery on the Road had pushed the end of term back a fair way.

Christmas at home was a short
holiday, the spring term starting in the first week of January,
meaning I only had ten days off. My parents weren’t too inventive
with their present that year, my mother quite proud of the new black
shoes she had bought me.

“They’ll look smart around the
school, while you’re sitting your exams,” she said.

I forced a smile and thanked her. I
had been hoping for a Game Boy, but I guess my parents didn’t want
me to be distracted from my studies. Next year, I would be asking for
driving lessons as a combined Christmas-birthday present.

I was pleased to discover that my
parents didn’t appear to have ransacked my room since I had
returned to school following the impromptu break. The prospectus from
BSFC was still where I had left it under my mattress. I couldn’t
help grinning as I retrieved it. Most other boys my age hid porn
there.

Recalling the advice Mr Finn, my
personal tutor, had given me, I decided that now was the right time
to tell my parents that I no longer wanted to attend St
Christopher’s. How to go about it, though? For a time, I mulled
telling them directly – just walking up to them while they were
drinking coffee and letting them know. It felt a little blunt,
though, and that wasn’t my style. But as I sat on my bed, trying to
make up my mind as to how to approach the subject, my mother solved
the problem for me.

“Joe, I’m just popping to
Waitrose. What would you like for dinner?” she said breezily,
coming in with a glass of orange juice. “What are you reading?”

At that moment, I felt that perhaps
it would have been
better
if I had been caught with a copy of
Club International
in my hand. The feeling then passed, and I
chose to state it as it was. “It’s the prospectus for the local
sixth form college,” I said.

My mother paused as if not hearing
me. “What for?”

“The prospectus for the local
sixth form college,” I repeated.

“Why do you have that?”

“Because I want to go there next
year,” I said.

Again, my mother said nothing,
clearly trying to work out if she was hearing me correctly or whether
I was joking.

“But you go to St Christopher’s,” she said.

“I know,” I said, feeling a
little more confident. “But I don’t want to go there any more. I
want to do my A-Levels somewhere else.”

She came over, taking the prospectus
from me and beginning to leaf through it, already appearing
thoroughly unimpressed. She paused on the pages where I had made
notes and circled various items.

“Is this because of the murder?”
she asked. “Because the headmaster has assured us that the school
is safe.”

“It’s nothing to do with that,
no,” I said.

“So why do you want to leave?”

“Because I’m bored of it.”

“Bored?” She stepped back as
though I had slapped her.

“Yes,
bored
,” I said, a
little more forcefully than I intended. “I’ve been there nearly
seven years now, and I need a change.”

“Oh, nonsense,” she said, though
she continued to flip through the pages, scanning the timetable and
course list at the back. “Don’t be stupid, Joseph,” she
eventually handed the prospectus back. “You go to a very good
school, and you can’t leave.”

This was exactly the situation that
I wanted to avoid – one where my parents wouldn’t
let
me
leave. It wasn’t as though they could physically force me to attend
St Christopher’s. They were hardly likely to bind and gag me, shove
me into the boot of the car and dump me at the school gates, along
with my possessions. But with my mother’s immediate refusal to
entertain my desires to move on from the boarding school I had
attended since I was nine, it sure felt like it.

“Catherine?” I heard my father
then coming up the stairs. “Catherine, where are you?”

“In here,” my mother replied,
doing little to disguise the irritation in her voice.

“Something wrong?” my father
asked, as he saw the look on my mother’s face.

“Ask him,” my mother said,
nodding to me.

“Joe, what have you done now?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“He says he wants to leave the
school,” my mother growled.

“You don’t want to go back next
term?” my father asked. “But we’ve already paid the fees. We’ve
also been assured that that incident was a one off and won’t happen
again.”

“No, not next term,” I said. “I
mean after I’ve done my GCSEs.”

“After you’ve finished your
exams?” my father said, looking to my mother.

“Yes,” I said.

“You can’t.”

“Why?” I asked, somewhat
incredulously.

“Because you can’t.”

“That makes no sense.”

“If you quit school now, what are
you going to do? Get a job working the tills in the supermarket?
Because that’s all you’re likely to get at sixteen.”

“No, Dad,” I said, now offering
the prospectus to him. “I want go here.”

The look on my mother’s face
remained one that could sour her orange juice, watching wordlessly as
my father took the prospectus and began to study it.

“Why do you want to go here?” my
father asked.

“He says he’s bored,” my
mother quipped.

“I
am
bored there,” I
emphasised.

“You can’t come and live back
here,” my father said.

“Why not?”
Why the bloody
hell not?!
was what I really wanted to say.

“Look, Joe, we don’t have time
to talk about this now. Your mother and I are very busy today. You’re
staying at that school until you’ve finished your A-Levels.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not. I’ll have been
there nearly seven years by the summer, and it’s about time I went
somewhere else.”

“Joe, you’re staying at St
Christopher’s until you finish your A-Levels,” my father
repeated.

“No, I’m not.”

“Joe, yes, you are.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” my mother
said before stomping out of my room. “I’m making pork chops for
dinner,” she said over her shoulder. “Tough if you don’t want
them because that’s all I’m cooking.”

“Thank you, Joe,” my father
said, watching her leave. “Now it’s me that’s going to get it
in the neck for the rest of the day.”

“I’m going to let the school
know I’m leaving at the end of the year,” I went on. “They only
need a heads-up at this point. At least half of the third years leave
when they finish their GCSEs, too, so it’s not unusual.”

“You can tell them if you want,”
my father said, handing back the prospectus, “but you’re not
going to a different school, and that’s the end of it. Now, I have
work to be getting on with.”

Do you never switch off?
I
wondered as my father left me sitting in my room by myself. It was
Christmas week, and they were both ploughing on as if it would kill
them to stop for just one day. That was about as much as I was going
to get out of them for now, I knew. I chose to let the subject lie
and not bring it up again while I was at home. Sadly, it had put my
mother (and subsequently my father) in a bad mood for the remainder
of my holiday, and, somewhat ironically, I couldn’t wait to get
away from home and back to St Christopher’s.

Lent Term

January 1992 – March 1992

Chapter Ten

I
returned to St Christopher’s in the first week of January, to spend
the spring term in the third year dormitory along with Baz, Sam,
Anthony Simmons, Charlie Smith, Darren Smith (no relation), and
Sebastian Silverman. Simmons and Charlie Smith were part of the
Clique, and I generally had little to do with them. Darren Smith and
Silverman were on the fringe, but stayed decidedly neutral in the
Clique’s affairs. They were the type who would rebel in their own
way, but were actually quite laid back. Simmons I was sure was in the
school’s sights for becoming head of house when the time came; both
the Smiths and Silverman would become prefects for sure.

“How was Texas?” I asked Sam, as
I made up my bed.

“Hot compared to here,” he said.
“About sixty-five degrees.”

“Jesus!” Baz said. “That’s
hotter than the Sahara!”

“That’s Fahrenheit, you
dickhead,” Simmons said. “It’s about sixteen over here.”

“All right, calm down,” Baz
snapped back at him.

“Eighteen,” Silverman said,
working out the difference as he continued toying with his scientific
calculator.

“Was it nice to be home?” I
looked back at Sam, keen to avoid any arguments from breaking out
already.

“Cody was home,” Sam said,
fiddling around with an AC adapter, so that he could plug his bedside
lamp into the wall socket. “Rare that he gets any time off right
now.”

“Are they going to send him back
to the Middle East again?” I asked.

“Your brother’s in the Middle
East?” Simmons said, somewhat indignantly.

“Yeah,” Sam replied.

“Why?”

“Because he’s in the army, and
that’s where they’ve sent him,” Sam said.

“Fuck that!” Simmons scowled,
trying to plump his pillows as Charlie and Darren sat on his bed,
getting in the way. “I wouldn’t go.”

“You can’t really refuse unless
you quit.”

“All right, well he could just
quit.”

“He wants to go there,” Sam
tried again.

“Why?”

“To defend the country from Saddam
Hussein,” Sam replied.

I wanted to tell Sam not to bother
arguing with Simmons, as it was clear to me that he was doing it just
to wind Sam up. The Clique tended to have very high opinions of
themselves, and generally considered things such as military service
to be something that only stupid people did.

“By going over
there
?”
Simmons said. “Saddam Hussein’s not invading the US.”

“Ant, give him a break,”
Silverman said without raising his eyes from his calculator, which he
was feeding equations into to generate a graph for his own amusement.
“That’s his job and what he wants to do.”

“Stupid job,” Simmons muttered.
“Invading someone else’s country and getting shot at.”

“Did you get nice presents?” I
asked Sam, eager once more to change the subject. I didn’t want to
put up with twelve weeks of tension on account of Simmons’ lack of
appreciation of other people’s views, cultures and politics.

“A Discman,” Sam said, picking
up the device off the bed and offering it to me to look at. “It’s
got an ESP of ten seconds and has a bass boost.”