The White Devil (2 page)

Then they descended a narrow stair into a warren of tight passages and low ceilings.

“This the basement?” Andrew asked. He felt a chill crawl up his arms. “It’s cold. Feels like someone left the fridge door open.”

Matron shot him a look of annoyance. “You must have caught something on the plane.”

He began to respond—
Hey, I wasn’t criticizing
—but stopped. There was something different about the basement. It was as if all the crumbling and decrepit parts of the house had been banished down here. The ceiling showed bare beams with beehived plaster and old bent nails, like somebody’s attic. The walls bared their brickwork like the layers of an archeological dig: in one place, herringboned, cathedral-like; in another, ranged in crude verticals, chewed by age, the survivor of a poorer, cruder era. Along the walls, older name-plaques stood stacked against the walls, gathering dust like ancient shields in some neglected treasure room. They were not the warmer, walnut-colored ones hanging on the walls upstairs; the blackness of their lettering merged into stained and sooty wood, as if the old plates themselves were forgetting the names carved into them. A dull, almost drugged sensation came over Andrew. His mind went into slow motion, taking all this in. Maybe he
had
caught something on the plane. The place seemed to throb.
Here is where they hide the history
.

They walked over to the shower stalls, a long, rectangular box of terra-cotta tile, lined with showerheads and soap trays.
You can fight your way for a spot through all the naked boys
, Matron was wryly saying, and as she spoke the words, she conjured the pictures, bare white figures twisting to bathe and scrub themselves through a scrim of steam. Andrew shook off the image. It was as if it had materialized, then vanished, on its own accord.

“I don’t like it down here,” Matron continued. “Gives me the creepy-crawlies. There’s a ghost in the Lot, you know. Boys tease that it’s up in the rooms. I think it’s down here.”

“Ghost?” he said.

“If you believe that sort of thing.”

“Not really,” he drawled.

THEY COMPLETED THE
tour, Matron chattering about the rules of the house. Andrew, at last, could not take any more in. His face screwed up, his eyes tightened. Matron caught his expression.

“You’re tired,” she said.

Without another word, she led him to his room and withdrew quickly, knowing from years of experience what was coming next.

Andrew flung himself on the bare mattress, and, to his shame, found himself crying. He plunged his face into the starchy, uncased pillow, not wanting Matron to hear. It all piled on top of him suddenly, on his hazy, jet-lagged brain. The long journey. The crummy loneliness of the place. That vertigo underpinning everything:
How did I end up here. How can I last a year here
. It lasted for two short minutes. Then he fell into a stupor.

SMEARING DROOL FROM
his chin, Andrew awoke to a soft knock and the whoosh of his door opening.
You need a minute?
came a voice. His eyes focused and Andrew saw his first Harrovian. Small-framed, and far from being a sickly boy cased in a wool uniform, a young man stood who was forged from sunshine: his clothes were colorful, stylish, expensive, unfamiliar—no fusty Brooks Brothers stuff here, but a purple shirt with a splayed collar and fitted, unpleated trousers and a suede jacket. His hair made tight yellow curls along his forehead; his eyes were deep-set and sympathetic. He was lean, athletic. The tendons around his neck quivered when he moved, his chest smooth and tanned a rich gold. Andrew gazed at him as if he were dreaming. Was this what they were like at Harrow? He felt soft, and pale, and . . . American. The specimen grinned at Andrew.

“You’re the American,” he stated. “I’m Theo Ryder, next door.” Andrew caught a different accent here:
Nixt dooh
. “Matron told me you might need a bit of an introduction to the place.”

“Did she?”

Theo laughed. “Not exactly warm and fuzzy, is she? You get used to it.”

“Oh, so this isn’t your first year at Harrow?”

“I’ve been here since I was twelve. I was one of these Shells. Crying for my mummy into my pillow every night.”

Andrew flushed and wondered whether his tears had left visible tracks.

“Have you got your kit?” Theo continued.

“My . . .”

“Ties, boater, so forth.”

“No, I’ve got to get a boater.”

“
Godda gedda boaterr
,” Theo said with a grin, imitating his accent. “You don’t have anything? No greyers, nothing?” Andrew shook his head. “We have work to do. Come on. Let’s get you to Pags & Lemmon.”

THEY STROLLED TO
a dusty outfitter’s, where a white-haired man with a walleye (
Hieronymus Pags
, Andrew read on a business card on the counter) measured his chest, neck, and head and produced a heap of clothing: greyers, bluers, Harrow hat, and Harrow ties. His outfit for a year.
The Harrow tie is black
, Mr. Pags explained with a simper,
in mourning for Queen Victoria
.

Andrew stood in the mirror. He looked like a half-tamed animal, packed into the confining clothing, his wild black hair spilling out the top.

But he could not—or would not—tie the tie. It was the final submission. The dog collar. Theo laughed and climbed behind Andrew, standing on a chair and facing the mirror so he could see the gestures from his own perspective. His hands twisted around Andrew’s neck; Andrew squirmed; but Theo affably tugged and yanked until the job was done. He patted Andrew on the shoulder.

“No escape now, mate. You’re one of us.”

THEO WAS AGAIN
his guide on the way to dining hall—a low, 1970s structure, accessible through an unlabeled arch on the High Street.

This was a good thing, because anarchy awaited inside: a steamy, low-ceilinged room of brown brick, ababble with hundreds of boys’ voices. Two food lines stretched back from the kitchens. To amuse themselves, two huge boys had started pushing at the end of the lines, putting their shoulders to their companions and knocking them forward, like flexible dominoes.
Oi
, went up the aggrieved shout. Faces crinkled in annoyance. Monitors appeared—nervous in their roles as rising Sixth Formers, exercising their authority for the first time—and strained to hold the boys back like Security at a rock concert. Andrew eventually received a white plate with two fried eggs and a ladleful of beans. He was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t gruel. He followed Theo across the room—weaving through boys in bluers and past an enormous toast station, heaped with grainy bread and lined with a half-dozen toasters and bowls of red jelly; these boys would live on toast, Andrew was to discover—toward a long, heavy wood table against the window. This was the Lot’s Sixth Form table. The lower forms ate at their own tables, perpendicular to this one.

Theo introduced him.

“Oi, everyone: Andrew, from America. Say hello like human beings.”

“Go fuck yourself, Ryder.”

“Yeah, go fuck yourself.”

“Fuck you too, Yank.”

“Yeah, piss off.”

There was sniggering at this.

“Eat shit, assholes,” snarled Andrew.

The crew looked up, somewhat startled that Andrew had not taken their remarks in fun.

“Charming.”

“That how they say hello in America?”

“Is
that
how you say hello in England?” Andrew snapped back.

“It’s English humor, man,” piped up one stocky boy with tight brown curls. “Americans don’t understand English humor.”

“Let’s try this again,” said Theo wearily. “Andrew is a new student. He’s here on his gap year.”

“You’re spending your gap year . . .
here
?”

“You must be insane to come to this place.”

“What’s a gap year?” asked Andrew.

“What’s a gap year?” sputtered the stocky boy again. “Were you born yesterday?”

“Year for travel, before university,” Theo explained, then gestured to the stocky boy. “May I introduce Roddy Slough.”

“Total freak,” added the freckled boy next to Roddy, as if this were Roddy’s subtitle.

“Fucking loser,” added another farther down the table, who threw a bunched-up napkin at Roddy.

“You’ll have to excuse them. I seem to be the only one with any manners around here.” Roddy stood and shook Andrew’s hand.

Roddy was the house oddball, Theo later confided; the others referred to him as
nouveau
, as in nouveau riche, because his father owned a chain of fast-food restaurants in London; Roddy was addicted to comics and spent most of his time in his room. He was a lightning rod for abuse, Theo explained, shaking his head.

“Oh sit down, you git,” barked the napkin thrower in disgust.

That, Theo told Andrew, in an aside, was St. John Tooley. Wild-eyed, jittery, St. John was hunched, with a greasy forelock and freckles. His father, Theo whispered, was one of the hundred richest men in England. Tooley, as in, Tooley, Inc., the global temp placement firm. As in Sir Howard Tooley.

A boy named Hugh was introduced: he had thick eyelashes and a fey manner. He was greeted with a volley of insinuating cat sounds, a kind of
Mrrrowww
. Hugh’s eyes went dark. This, Andrew realized, must be the term of abuse for suspected homosexuals. Real subtle.

And so it went. Andrew had the sensation of having crashed someone else’s family vacation—all the squabbles and petty hatreds of prolonged cohabitation were here in evidence. Epithets, embarrassing anecdotes; alliances and animosities. In succession each of them spilled bits and pieces to Andrew. He quickly realized this group had started together as Shells, and were desperate for someone new to tell their stories to.

“So what’s the deal with the ghost?” he ventured, during a lull.

Shhhh
, he was told.

“Newboys,” someone stage-whispered. “We’ll tell one of them tonight.”

“Tell them what?”

“We pick someone,” explained a boy named Rhys, who, it turned out, was head of house; a stocky, genial guy with straw-blond hair from Wales who was studying agriculture. “And tell him his room is haunted.”

“
Someone died in that very room
,” offered someone in a spooky tone.

“Then later we come in and completely abuse him.”

“Soak him.”

“Scream.”

“Remember the year they dumped Pat out of bed?”

“The poor bastard thinks it’s the ghost and loses it,” explained Rhys. “It’s totally wet.”

“Fuck it is, it’s funny.”

“It’s a Lot tradition.”

“How’d you get hold of that, on your first day?” someone asked him.

“I thought I felt a chill in the basement.”

A questioning glance was passed around the table.

“Matron mentioned it,” he explained to fill the awkward silence.

“So why are you here?” asked a large, muscular boy next to St. John. This, Theo explained, was Vaz: short for Vasily. White Russian. Family fled the 1918 revolution. Vaz was a thickset boy of enormous size; arms, legs, body all rounded and heavy as slabs of meat. (
He’s our hooker for the First Fifteens
, Theo whispered. Andrew had no idea what that meant but guessed it was an important position; and Fifteens, looking at Vaz, had to be rugby.) His face spread wide and flat across a football-shaped skull, with slitted, squinting eyes and light brown hair gelled into twists. He looked like a menacing and steroidal version of Ernie from
Sesame Street
. Vaz seemed to speak rarely, except to add to a communal joke, but when he did, the others paused to listen. St. John’s every jerky movement seemed designed to amuse Vaz.

“Don’t ask him that,” protested Theo. “It’s his business.”

“Why not? You never see newboys in Sixth Form. There must be a reason.”

“Yeah, why are you here, Yank?” demanded St. John.

The table went quiet. Andrew hesitated.

“Uh-oh, he’s going to tell us to eat shit again.”

General laughter.

“My father thought it would be a good idea to take a year abroad,” said Andrew, carefully.

“
Mrrrowww
, dad-dy,” came the catcalls.

“Your dad? Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Andrew parried, stalling for time. “To get my grades up. And reapply to colleges. Universities.”

“Are you taking A-Levels?” persisted Vaz.

Andrew paused. “What are A-Levels?”

Pandemonium ensued. Roddy especially could barely stay in his seat.
You don’t know what A-Levels are? Are you mentally retarded? Do you even
have
schools in America?
And so forth. It turned out A-Levels were big exams at the year’s end; everything in the whole school year led up to them. Whoops. Exploded by Andrew’s outrageous lack of knowledge, the conversation took different turns, and Andrew was out of the hot seat. But he caught Vaz eyeing him. No one who’d crossed the ocean to better his grades would not know what A-Levels were, and Vaz knew it. So what was Andrew the American hiding?

A BRIEF HOUSE
meeting followed, where the boys crowded onto benches in a long common room. Andrew stared at the framed photographs lining the walls: house photos. Rows of boys lined up in the garden in tailcoats. First in color, then, as the dates stretched back to the 1960s, in black-and-white. For one of the years the picture had bleached out. In place of faces was a white-hot, radioactive glow. Andrew was forced to stop looking when the boys on one end of his bench tried shoving the last guy off the other end.

Then came a scramble, and smirks: the housemaster had arrived, late.
Fawkes
, they whispered. Piers Fawkes swept in in his black beak’s robes, a slim, slightly stooped forty-five, his light brown hair boyish and uncombed, and his large eyes bulging slightly, giving him the placid, somewhat clownish expression of someone who’d been caught napping at his own birthday party.
Drunk and useless
, Rhys told him, shaking his head.
Who arrives late to the first house meeting?
Then added a single word—
Poet
—as if that explained everything.