7
St. Oswald’s Grammar School for BoysThursday, 23rd September
The trouble began on Monday, and I knew something had happened when I saw the cars. Pat Bishop’s Volvo was there, as usual—always first in, he even spends the night in his office at busy times—but it was almost unheard-of to see Bob Strange’s car there before eight o‘ clock, and there was the Head’s Audi too, and the Chaplain’s Jag, and half a dozen others, including a black-and-white police car, all parked in the staff car park outside the Porter’s Lodge.
For myself, I prefer the bus. In heavy traffic it’s quicker, and in any case, I never need to go more than a few miles to work or to the shops. Besides, I have my bus pass now, and though I can’t help thinking that there must be some mistake (sixty-four—how can I be sixty-four, by all the gods?), it does save money.
I walked up the long drive to St. Oswald’s. The poplars are on the turn, gilded with the approach of autumn, and there were little columns of white vapor rising from the dewy grass. I looked into the Porter’s Lodge as I walked by. Fallow wasn’t there.
No one in the Common Room seemed to know exactly what was going on. Strange and Bishop were in the Head’s office with Dr. Tidy and Sergeant Ellis, the liaison officer. Still Fallow was nowhere to be seen.
I wondered if there had been a break-in. It happens occasionally, though for the most part Fallow does a reasonable job of looking after the place. A bit of a crawler with the management, and of course he’s been on the take for years. Small things—a bag of coal, a packet of biscuits from the kitchens, plus his pound-a-go racket for opening lockers—but he’s loyal enough, and when you consider that he earns about a tenth of even a junior Master’s salary, you learn to turn a blind eye. I hoped there was nothing the matter with Fallow.
As always, the boys knew it first. Rumors had been flying wildly throughout the morning; Fallow had had a heart attack; Fallow had threatened the Head; Fallow had been suspended. But it was Sutcliff, McNair, and Allen-Jones who found me at break time and asked me, with that cheery, disingenuous air they adopt when they know someone else is in trouble, whether it was true that Fallow had been arrested.
“Who told you that?” I said with a smile of deliberate ambiguity.
“Oh, I heard someone say something.” Secrets are currency in any school, and I hadn’t expected McNair to reveal his informant, but obviously, some sources are more reliable than others. From the boy’s expression I gathered that this had come from somewhere near the top.
“They’ve ripped out some panels in the Porter’s Lodge,” said Sutcliff. “They took out a whole bunch of stuff.”
“Such as?”
Allen-Jones shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Cigarettes, maybe?”
The boys looked at one another. Sutcliff flushed slightly. Allen-Jones gave a little smile. “Maybe.”
Later, the story came out; Fallow had been using his cheap day trips to France to bring back illicit, tax-free cigarettes, which he had been selling—via the ice cream man, who was a friend of his—to the boys.
The profits were excellent—a single cigarette costing up to a pound, depending on the age of the boy—but St. Oswald’s boys have plenty of money, and besides, the thrill of breaking the rules right under the nose of the Second Master was almost irresistible. The scheme had been going on for months, possibly years; the police had found about four dozen cartons hidden behind a secret panel in the lodge, and many hundreds more in Fallow’s garage, stacked floor to ceiling behind a set of disused bookcases.
Both Fallow and the ice cream man confirmed the cigarette story. Of the other items found in the lodge, Fallow denied all knowledge, although he was at a loss to explain their presence. Knight identified his bar mitzvah pen; later, and with some reluctance, I claimed my old green Parker. I was relieved in one sense that no boy in my form had taken them; on the other hand I knew that this was yet another small nail in the coffin of John Fallow, who had at one blow lost his home, his job, and quite possibly his freedom.
I never did find out who had tipped off the authorities. An anonymous letter, or so I heard; in any case, no one came forward. It must have been someone on the inside, says Robbie Roach (a smoker and erstwhile good friend of Fallow); some little snitch keen to make trouble. He’s probably right; though I hate the thought of a colleague being responsible.
A boy, then? Somehow that seems even worse; the thought that one of our boys could single-handedly do so much damage.
A boy like Knight, perhaps? It was only a thought; but there is a new smugness in Knight, a look of awareness, that I like even less than his natural sullenness. Knight? There was no reason to think so. All the same I did think so; deep down, where it matters. Call it prejudice; call it instinct. The boy knew something.
Meanwhile, the little scandal runs its course. There will be an investigation by Customs and Excise; and although it is very unlikely that the school will press charges—any suggestion of bad publicity sends the Head into spasms—Mrs. Knight has so far refused to withdraw her own complaint. The governors will have to be informed; there will be questions asked concerning the role of the Porter, his appointment (Dr. Tidy is already on the defensive, and is demanding police reports on all ancillary staff), and his probable replacement. In short, the Fallow incident has created ripples all over the school, from the Bursar’s office to the Quiet Room.
The boys feel it and have been unusually disruptive, testing the boundaries of our discipline. A member of the school has been disgraced—albeit only a Porter—and a breath of revolt stirs; on Tuesday, Meek emerged from his fifth-form Computer Studies classes looking pale and shaken; McDonaugh gave out a series of vicious detentions; Robbie Roach fell mysteriously ill, incensing the whole department, who had to cover for him. Bob Strange set cover for all his classes on the grounds that he was too busy with Other Things, and today the Head took a disastrous Assembly in which he announced (to general, if unvoiced amusement) that there was no truth whatever in the malicious rumors concerning Mr. Fallow, and that any boy perpetrating such rumors would be Dealt With Most Severely.
But it is Pat Bishop, the Second Master, who has been most affected by Fallowgate, as Allen-Jones has named the unfortunate affair. Partly, I think, because such a thing is completely outside his comprehension; Pat’s loyalty to St. Oswald’s reaches back for more than thirty years, and whatever his other faults, he is scrupulously honest. His whole philosophy (such as it is; for our Pat is no philosopher) is based on the assumption that people are fundamentally good and wish, at heart, to do good, even when they are led astray. This ability to see good in everyone is at the core of his dealings with boys, and it works very well; weaklings and villains are shamed by his kind, stern manner, and even staff are in awe of him.
But Fallow has caused a kind of crisis. First, because Pat was fooled—he blames himself for not noticing what was going on—and second, because of the contempt implicit in the deception. That Fallow—whom Pat had always treated with politeness and respect—should repay him in such spiteful coin dismays and shames him. He remembers the John Snyde business and wonders whether he is somehow at fault in this case. He does not say these things, but I have noticed that he smiles less than usual, keeps to his office during the day, runs even more laps than usual in the mornings, and often works late.
As for the Languages department, it has suffered less than most. This is partly thanks to Pearman, whose natural cynicism serves as a welcome foil for the aloofness of Strange or the anxious bluster of the Head. Gerry Grachvogel’s classes are somewhat noisier than usual, though not enough to require my intervention. Geoff and Penny Nation are saddened, but unsurprised, shaking their heads at the beastliness of human nature. Dr. Devine uses the Fallow affair to terrorize poor Jimmy. Eric Scoones is bad-tempered, though not much more than usual. Dianne Dare, like the creative Keane, follows the whole thing with fascination.
“This place runs like a complicated soap opera,” she told me this morni
ng in the Common Room. “You never know what’s going to happen next.”
I admitted that there was occasionally some entertainment value to be had from the dear old place.
“Is that why you stayed on? I mean—” She broke off, aware, perhaps, of the unflattering implication.
“I stayed on, as you so kindly put it, because I am old-fashioned enough to believe that our boys may derive some small benefit from my lessons, and most importantly, because it annoys Mr. Strange.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. It doesn’t suit you.”
It’s hard to explain St. Oswald’s; harder still from across a gulf of more than forty years. She is young, attractive, bright; one day she will fall in love, maybe have children. She will have a house, which will be a home rather than a secondary annex of the Book Room; she will take holidays in far-flung locations. At least, I hope so; the alternative is to join the rest of the galley slaves and stay chained to the ship until someone pitches you overboard.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, sir,” said Miss Dare.
“You didn’t.” Perhaps I’m going soft in my old age, or perhaps the business with Fallow has troubled me more than I knew. “It’s just that I’m feeling rather Kafkaesque this morning. I blame Dr. Devine.”
She laughed at that, as I thought she might. And yet there remained something in her expression. She has adapted rather well to life at St. Oswald’s; I see her going to lessons with her briefcase and an armful of books; I hear her talking to the boys in the crisp, cheerful tones of a staff nurse. Like Keane, she has a self-possession that serves her well in a place like this, where everyone must fight his corner and to ask for help is a sign of weakness. She can feign anger or hide it when she needs to, knowing that a teacher must be above all a performer, always master of his audience and always in command of the stage. It’s unusual to see that quality in such a young teacher; I suspect that both Miss Dare and Mr. Keane are naturals, just as I know poor Meek is not.
“You’ve certainly come in interesting times,” I said. “Inspections, restructurings, treason, and plot. The bricks and mortar of St. Oswald’s. If you can survive this—”
“My parents were teachers. I know what to expect.”
That explained it. You can always tell. I picked up a mug (not mine; still missing) from the rack by the side of the sink. “Tea?”
She smiled. “The teacher’s cocaine.”
I inspected the contents of the tea urn and poured for both of us. Over the years I have become accustomed to drinking tea in its most elementary form. Even so, the brown sludge that settled in my cup looked distinctly toxic. I shrugged and added milk and sugar. That which does not kill me makes me stronger. An appropriate motto, perhaps, for a place like St. Oswald’s, perpetually on the brink of tragedy or farce.
I looked around at my colleagues, sitting in groups around the old Common Room, and felt a deep and unexpected stab of affection. There was McDonaugh, reading the Mirror in his corner; Monument, by his side, reading the Telegraph; Pearman, discussing nineteenth-century French pornography with Kitty Teague; Isabelle Tapi checking her lipstick; the League of Nations sharing a chaste banana. Old friends; comfortable collaborators.
As I said, it’s hard to explain St. Oswald’s; the sound of the place in the mornings; the flat echo of boys’ feet against the stone steps; the smell of burning toast from the Refectory; the peculiar sliding sound of overfilled sports bags being dragged along the newly polished floor. The Honors Boards, with gold-painted names dating back from before my great-great-grandfather; the war memorial; the team photographs; the brash young faces, tinted sepia with the passing of time. A metaphor for eternity.
Gods, I’m getting sentimental. Age does that; a moment ago I was bemoaning my lot and now here I am getting all misty-eyed. It must be the weather. And yet, Camus says, we must imagine Sisyphus happy. Am I unhappy? All I know is that something has shaken us; shaken us to the foundations. It’s in the air, a breath of revolt, and somehow I know that it goes deeper than the Fallow affair. Whatever it may be, it is not over. And it’s still only September.
EN PASSANT
1
Monday, 27th September
In spite of the Head’s best efforts, Fallow made the papers. Not the News of the World—that would have been too much to expect—but our own Examiner, which is almost as good. The traditional rift between school and town is such that bad news from St. Oswald’s travels fast, and is received for the most part with a fierce and unholy glee. The ensuing piece was both triumphant and vitriolic, simultaneously portraying Fallow as a long-term employee of the school, dismissed (summarily and without Union representation) for a crime as yet unproved and, at the same time, as a likeable rogue who for years had been getting his own back on a system comprising Hooray Henrys, faceless bureaucrats, and out-of-touch academics.
It has become a David and Goliath situation, with Fallow as a symbol of the working classes fighting the monstrous machines of wealth and privilege. The writer of the piece, who signs his name simply as Mole, also manages to convey the impression that St. Oswald’s is filled with similar scams and small corruptions, that the teaching is hopelessly out-of-date, that smoking (and possibly drug abuse) is rife, and that the buildings themselves are so badly in need of repair that a serious accident is almost inevitable. An editorial, entitled “Private Schools—Should They Be Scrapped?” flanks the piece, and readers are invited to send in their own thoughts and grievances against St. Oswald’s and the Old Boy network that protects it.
I’m rather pleased with it. They printed it almost unedited, and I have promised to keep them informed of any further developments. In my e-mail I hinted that I was a source close to the school—an Old Boy, a pupil, a governor, perhaps even a member of staff—keeping the details fluid (I may have to change them later).
I used one of my secondary e-mail addresses—
[email protected], to foil any attempt to discover my identity. Not that anyone at the Examiner is likely to try—they’re more accustomed to dog shows and local politics than investigative journalism—but you never know where a story like this is going to end. I don’t entirely know myself; which is, I suppose, what makes it fun.
It was raining when I arrived at school this morning. Traffic was slower than usual, and I had to make an effort to control my annoyance as I inched through town. One of the things that makes the locals resent St. Oswald’s is the traffic it generates at rush hour; the hundreds of clean, shiny Jags and sensible Volvos and four-wheel drives and people carriers that line the roads every morning with their cargo of clean, shiny boys in blazers and caps.
Some take the car even when their home is less than a mile away. God forbid that the clean, shiny boy should have to jump puddles or breathe pollutants or (worse still) experience contamination by the dull, grubby pupils of the nearby Sunnybank Park; the loudmouthed, loose-limbed boys with their nylon jackets and scuffed trainers; the yawping girls in their short skirts and dyed hair. When I was their age I walked to school; I wore those cheap shoes and grubby socks; and sometimes as I drive to work in my rented car I can still feel the rage mounting in me, the terrible rage against who I was and who I longed to be.
I remember a time, late that summer. Leon was bored; school was out, and we were hanging around the public playground (I remember the roundabout, its paint worn clean through to the metal by generations of young hands), smoking Camels (Leon smoked, so I did too), and watching the Sunnybankers go by.
“Barbarians. Rabble. Proles.” His fingers were long and slender, deeply stained with ink and nicotine. On the path, a little knot of Sunnybankers approaching, dragging their schoolbags, shouting, dusty-footed in the hot afternoon. No threat to us, though there were times when we’d had to run, pursued by a gang of Sunnybankers.
Once, when I wasn’t there, they’d cornered Leon, down by the bins at the back of the school, and given him a kicking. I hated them all the more for that; even more than Leon did—they were
my people, after all. But these were just girls—four of them together and a straggler from my own year—raucous, gum-chewing girls, skirts hiked up blotchy legs, giggling and screaming as they ran down the path.
The straggler, I saw, was Peggy Johnsen, the fat girl from Mr. Bray’s Games class, and I turned away instinctively, but not before Leon had caught my eye and winked.
“Well?”
I knew that look. I recognized it from our forays into town; our record shop thefts; our small acts of rebellion. Leon’s gaze brimmed with mischief; his bright eyes pinned Peggy as she half ran to keep up.
“Well what?”
The other four were far ahead. Peggy, with her sweaty face and anxious look, was suddenly alone. “Oh no,” I said. The truth was I had nothing against Peggy; a slow, harmless girl only a step removed from mental deficiency. I even pitied her a little.
Leon gave me a scornful look. “What is she, Pinchbeck, your girlfriend?” he said. “Come on!” And he was off at a run, arcing across the playground with an exuberant whoop. I followed him; I told myself there was nothing else I could have done.
We snatched her bags—Leon took her games kit in its Woolworth’s carrier, I grabbed her canvas satchel with the little hearts drawn on in Tipp-Ex. Then we ran, far too fast for Peggy to follow, leaving her squalling in our dust. I’d simply wanted to get away before she recognized me; but my momentum had sent me crashing against her, knocking her to the ground.