The Red Road (22 page)

I turned to see Father Thomas
approaching. He was wrapped in his signature long, black cloak
against the chill of the morning, his hands hidden somewhere within.
Damn, that cloak looked warm.

“I’m guessing that none of you
have failed to notice the snow on your way over; it’s rather hard
to miss,” he said somewhat cheerily. “We’ve had a lot more than
the forecast said there was going to be, and so we’re not going to
run the usual schedule this morning.” He cast his eyes along the
road defined by the snow, the snowfall there lying a little shallower
than that on the grass verges framing it.

“We need to get it all
cleared, otherwise the delivery vans, cars, staff, and other visitors
to the school won’t be able to get in,” he finished.

I felt my spirits lift. There
wouldn’t be any torturous punishments to be had this morning. All
we were going to be made to do would be to act as snowploughs, to
clear the roads and paths. It would be hard work, sure, and probably
quite tedious, but it was preferable to rolling down a snow-covered
hill without a shirt on, as Lawrence was eager for us to do. The
first and second years were still standing gloomily about, shivering
and looking thoroughly miserable. They had no idea of how lucky they actually were.

“So, if you all want to come with
me, we’re going to go to the gardeners’ lodge and get some brooms
and shovels,” Father Thomas said, starting off.

“Father,” Lawrence called, “I
think they could all do with a run before we start, to warm them up.
A couple of times around the main drive.”

Shut the hell up, you prick!
I immediately wanted to shout at him. He was clearly already bitter
that he wouldn’t be able to order us to act out all the little
schemes he had planned. I wondered if he had sat up the previous
night with a few others, plotting out precisely what he was going to
make us do. The sight of Father Thomas approaching must have really
ruined his morning.

“No, no, Michael, there’s no
time for that,” Father Thomas replied with a shake of his head. “We
need to get started immediately, as there’s a lot to do. Even
starting now, it could take us until seven-thirty at least, and
the boys will need to get back to their houses, shower, and have
breakfast before getting to class.”

I glanced over the main drive
leading up to the school. There was a considerable amount of snow
there, I saw. Even so, I was sure that Father Thomas wouldn’t stop
at just wanting us to clear the drive; he would also want all the
paths around the houses, classrooms, and other important places that
teachers and pupils would need to get to cleared, so no one slipped
over and broke something. He corroborated my thoughts as we arrived
at the gardeners’ lodge.

“Right,” the tall monk said,
starting his delegation. “If some of you want to take some of the
shovels and brooms and come with me, we’ll start clearing the path
for the junior school and the routes to the classrooms. In fact, I
think it’s best that I take most of the first years with me,” he
added as boys immediately lunged for the tools, all knowing very well
that to be under the authority of Father Thomas would be infinitely
more pleasant than Lawrence.

Even so, it turned into a bit of a
free for all, boys arguing and fighting over who would get to do
what, and so Father Thomas took to directing who was going to carry
various buckets and pales that the snow might have to scooped into,
to be more effectively removed.

I saw Lawrence eyeing the number of
available tools for the job. There was a significant amount, but
still not enough to go around. He was probably thinking that he might
be able to take some of those who were left with nothing to do on one
of the sadistic alternative punishments that was festering in the
back of his mind. I hoped he wouldn’t be given the chance. He might
be smart, but he clearly had some deep-seated issues.

The tasks were allocated, and I was
charged with working with Lawrence to clear the main drive, though I
was thankfully handed a shovel by Father Thomas for which to perform
the work. His plans thwarted, the seething prefect led us back down
to the main drive to commence the snow ploughing operation.

Dammit
, I realised as I took
hold of the shovel’s handle. I had neglected to bring gloves.
Walking from Butcher I had kept my hands in the pockets of my
tracksuit, not thinking that I would at some point have to remove
them. Now my hands would be exposed for however long this task took.
Chilblains could well be on the cards for later.

The ploughing commenced, the boys in
the years below working in silence, the only exchange of words being
what was required to get the job done. I did likewise, concentrating
only on shovelling snow. I was one of the two third years that had
been sent back down here, the rather stocky Liam Duckworth of Cookson
House having been taken by Father Thomas to help with some of the
more challenging parts of the snow clearing at his end. The other,
Jeff Barlow, also of Cookson House, wasn’t someone that I spoke to
a great deal. He was quite tightly integrated with the Clique and so
had little to do with me. Today, however, we were working side by
side to get the task done.

“What did you do?” I asked as we
scooped snow and tossed it in the general direction of the side of
the road. One of the first years who had been allocated to the drive
was using a bucket to shift the snow off the road. We were calling
him over and dumping lumps of ice into it as we came across them.

“Told Mr Summers to fuck off,”
Barlow said.

“Seriously?” I said, quite
startled that he would do such a thing. “You told one of the
housemasters to fuck off?”

“Not Somers,
Summers
,”
Barlow repeated, shovelling a particularly large lump of ice into the
bucket.

Ah, the English teacher. It mattered
little who it was to be perfectly honest. The fact was that Barlow
had sworn directly at one of the teachers.

“Why did you do that?”
I asked.

“He gave me a B on my English Lit
essay on
Great Expectations
,” he said. “It was worth an A
at least, and I told him to change it, but he refused. We then argued
about what the story was about, and he said that I hadn’t read all
of it, so I told him to fuck off and he put me on the
List
.”

“
Did
you read it?” I
joked.

“No,” he scoffed. “It’s
fucking boring. I copied mostly off Doggy.”

The first year’s bucket was
filled, and the boy headed off. A snowball struck him on the side of
the face as he walked the short distance to dump it, making him drop
the bucket, the snow and ice within tumbling out.

“Pick that up, you little shit!”
Lawrence barked angrily, even though it was he who had just tossed
the ball.

“Glad he’s not actually taking
this thing,” Barlow muttered as we began to scoop and throw more
snow onto the sides. “He’s okay most of the time, but he turns
into a complete dick when it comes to stuff like this.”

I couldn’t say that he was
ever
a nice person. I continued shovelling, watching out of the corner of
my eye as Lawrence began to roll up a new snowball, searching for
another victim to pelt. With Father Thomas having taken the reins,
the prefect had been relegated to merely overseeing and so would now
be stood around for the next couple of hours with a face liked a
smacked arse. I imagined he would find reason to put many of those
here today on the
List
again next Friday, feeling that we hadn’t
been punished enough.

Scoop, throw, scoop, throw. I
began to worry if I was going to finish all this before seven-thirty.
More likely, it would be around eight, perhaps even later. I
didn’t have to hurry; I had a free period from nine until ten,
which meant taking my time in getting breakfast. Even so, it would be
good to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Paff!
A snowball hit Barlow.

“Oi!” Barlow said, clearly
forcing a jovial tone into his voice, even if his face was betraying
it. He bent to respond to Lawrence’s attack in kind.

“Want to go on the
List
next week?” the sixth former threatened as Jeff made ready to throw
the ball.

“Was only kidding, Mike,” Barlow
grinned, throwing the snowball in the direction of one of the younger
boys, missing by only inches.

“Good. Get on with it,” Lawrence
pointed.

“Cock,” Barlow said under his
breath as we returned to scooping. Another snowball hit him not long
after that, but he didn’t respond.

With Barlow being so stroppy about
his grades and Lawrence equally so, I would have thought the two
would be getting on like a house on fire. Ah, fire. A nice hot fire.
I could do with one of those right now.

Lawrence tossed a few more snowballs
about before he started to grow bored. “Will you lot hurry the fuck
up?” he shouted.

No one answered, all focusing on
ploughing. We all knew better than to answer back.

“Oi, Jeff,” Lawrence then said,
coming over to us. “I’m going for a fag. Tell
The B.F.G.
that
I’ve gone to get a coffee if he asks, okay? I’m putting you in
charge.”

“No problem,” Jeff said.

“And you,” Lawrence punched me
on the arm, “work harder. I want more than half of this done when I
come back.”

I turned to him, finding it hard not
to glare. At the look, however, Lawrence took a small step back.

“Ah,
it’s you, Crosthwaite,” he said. He struggled for something to
add, then said, “Keep going, there’s lots of snow left.”

Interesting reaction
, I
thought as Lawrence headed down the drive towards the main gates, one
of the many favoured smoking spots for those that did so regularly.
The tall, thick bushes and trees there were an excellent place to
conceal oneself, even more so now that they were covered in snow.

I heard one of the boys starting to
sob as he continued to fill his bucket. Lawrence had earlier forced
him to pack the snow in with his bare hands for a time, and I could
see from here that they had turned a bright red. I had experienced
something similar myself when I was younger. His hands would hurt
like hell later on in the shower, if he didn’t warm them up slowly.

I recognised the boy as Gregory Miller, the first year who I had
looked after as a dormitory prefect in the autumn term, the one who
had stunk to high heaven after his manure and compost-rolling
incident. He did like to make a fuss and was often picked on. I
saw Father Thomas approaching then, bearing a steaming cup with him. Hot
chocolate, I supposed – that was his favourite.

“Ah, now how are you two getting
on?” he asked.

“Okay,” Barlow and I answered.
‘Can I borrow your cloak for an hour?’ I wanted to ask.

“Where’s Michael?” Father
Thomas wanted to know, looking around for the prefect.

“He’s gone to get a coffee,”
Jeff answered automatically.

“Hmm, he should be keeping charge
down here, not leaving you alone while he gets himself a drink.”

“It’s okay, Father, he put Joe
and I in charge,” Barlow answered once more.

Jeff Barlow, I knew, was eager to
become a prefect when he reached the upper sixth, and as a result
would big up any responsibility that he was given, no matter how
small or trivial, to prove that he was worthy of the appointment. I
didn’t know why he was trying so hard. Both his father and older
brother had been made prefects when they had attended the school,
making Barlow almost a shoo-in.

“Hmm, okay,” Father Thomas said,
still disapproving of the decision. “But tell him to come and see
me when he gets back.” He was then distracted by the sobs and
snivelling he could hear and went over to investigate. “Now,
Gregory, what’s all this fuss about?”

“My hands hurt, Father,” Miller
sniffed.

The monk took the boy’s hands,
examining them closely. “Have you been handling the snow with your
bare hands?”

“It was the only way to get most
of it into the bucket,” the boy whimpered.

“Hmm,” Father Thomas said,
continuing to turn the boy’s hands over.

I saw that they were worse
than I had at first thought, the redness spreading all the way up to
his wrists. I suddenly knew what was about to come next.

Father Thomas manipulated his gloves
and drew back a sleeve, looking at the time on his watch. “Okay, I
think you’ve had enough down here. Take the bucket up to help the
others clearing the path to Churchill House.”

“Churchill House, Father?”

“Sorry, not Churchill House. It
hasn’t been called that for years. The junior school, I mean. You
really shouldn’t have come out here without gloves. Let’s say
just another half an hour, and you can go in. We don’t want your
hands to get any worse and then need to spend the day in the
infirmary. I’ll be back up in a minute to tell you when you can
go.”

“Thank you, Father,” Miller
said, still snivelling and picking up the bucket to start over to the
junior school.

Barlow gave me an incredulous look.
“Father, what?!” he said to the monk. “He’s only got to do an
hour?!”

“Never you mind, Jeffrey,”
Father Thomas said after Miller was more or less out of earshot.
“Gregory didn’t have a very happy Christmas, so I don’t want to
help compound his misery any further.”

Sure
, I thought.
I had a
miserable Christmas, too. A massive argument with my parents about me
wanting to get away from this place, but you don’t hear me bitching
about it
.

I continued to shovel, trying to disguise my obvious
annoyance that the first year would be getting away at least half an
hour before the rest of us, when I heard a cry go up.

Father Thomas, who had been standing
around watching all of us shovel and apparently waiting for Lawrence
to return with his coffee, looked over to the cause of the distress.
I watched as a stream of boys who had all taken the opportunity to
down tools ran over to see what was happening. They were heading in
the direction of the sandstone steps that led to the upper grounds,
where the junior school, the science labs and some of the other
houses were based. Father Thomas started over, at an unhurried pace.
Barlow looked at me, before we both put our shovels down and made our
own way over.