NUTS TO YOU, SIR!
Colin Knight is a studious, shy young man who has found the social and academic pressures of St. Oswald’s increasingly difficult to deal with. “There’s a lot of bullying,” he told the Examiner, “but most of us don’t dare report it. Some boys can do anything they like at St. Oswald’s, because some of the teachers are on their side, and anyone who makes a complaint is bound to get into trouble.”
Certainly, Colin Knight does not look like a troublemaker. And yet, if we are to believe the complaints leveled against him this term by his form master (Roy Straitley, 65), he has, in three short weeks, been guilty of numerous instances of theft, lying, and bullying, culminating in his suspension from school following a bizarre accusation of assault, when a fellow student (James Anderton-Pullitt, 13) choked on a peanut.
We spoke to John Fallow, dismissed from St. Oswald’s two weeks ago after fifteen years’ loyal service. “I’m glad to see young Knight standing up for himself,” Fallow told the Examiner. “But the Anderton-Pullitts are school governors, and the Knights are just an ordinary family.”
Pat Bishop (54), Second Master and spokesman for St. Oswald’s, told us: “This is an internal disciplinary matter which will be thoroughly investigated before any further decision is taken.”
In the meantime, Colin Knight will continue his education from his bedroom, forfeiting his right to attend the classes for which his family pays seven thousand pounds a year. And although for the average St. Oswald’s pupil this may not count for much, for ordinary people like the Knights, it’s very far from peanuts.
I’m rather proud of that little piece: a medley of fact, conjecture, and low humor that should rankle suitably in the arrogant heart of St. Oswald’s. My one regret was that I could not sign my name to it—not even my assumed name, although Mole was certainly instrumental in its construction.
Instead I used a female reporter as my cover and e-mailed my copy to her as before, adding a few details to facilitate her enquiry. The piece ran, flanked by a photograph of young Knight—clean and wholesome in his school uniform—and a grainy class portrait from 1997, showing Straitley looking blotchy and dissipated, surrounded by boys.
Of course, any criticism of St. Oswald’s is balm to the Examiner. By the weekend it had resurfaced twice in the national press: once as a cheery blip on page ten of the News of the World, and once as part of a more contemplative editorial piece in the Guardian, entitled “Rough Justice in Our Independent Schools.”
All in all, a good day’s work. I’d made sure that any mention of anti-Semitism was withheld for the present and instead worked on my touching depiction of the Knights as honest folk, but poor. That’s what the readers really want—a story of people like themselves (they think), scrimping and saving to send their kids to the best possible school—although I’d like to see any of them actually blowing seven grand in beer money on fees, for God’s sake, when the government’s giving out education for free.
My father read the News of the World too, and he was filled with the same ponderous clichés about School’s your best investment and Learning is for life, though as far as I could see, it never went further than that, and if he saw the irony in his words, he never gave any sign of it.
7
St. Oswald’s Grammar School for BoysWednesday, 13th October
Knight was back on Monday morning. Wearing an expression of martyred bravery, like an assault victim, and the tiniest of smirks. The other boys treated him with caution but were not unkind; in fact I noticed that Brasenose, who usually avoids him, went out of his way to be friendly, sitting next to him at lunchtime and even offering him half of his chocolate bar. It was as if Brasenose, the perpetual victim, had spotted a potential defender in the newly vindicated Knight and was making an effort to cultivate his friendship.
Anderton-Pullitt was back too; looking none the worse for his near-death experience, and with a new book on First World War aircraft with which to plague us. As for myself, I’ve been worse. I said as much to Dianne Dare when she questioned the wisdom of my swift return to work, and later, to Pat Bishop who accused me of looking tired.
I have to say he isn’t looking too well himself at the moment. First the Fallow case, then the scene with Anderton-Pullitt, and finally this business with Knight…I’d heard from Marlene that Pat had slept more than one night in his office; and now I saw that his face was redder than usual, and his eyes bloodshot. From the way he approached me I guessed the New Head had sent him to sound me out, and I could tell Bishop wasn’t pleased about this, but as Second Master, his duty is to the head, whatever his own feelings on the matter.
“You look exhausted, Roy. Are you sure you ought to be here?”
“Nothing wrong with me that a good strict nurse can’t cure.”
He did not smile. “After what happened, I thought you might at least take a week or two.”
I could see where this was leading. “Nothing happened,” I said shortly.
“That’s not true. You had an attack—”
“Nerves. Nothing more.”
He sighed. “Roy, be reasonable—”
“Don’t lecture me, Pat. I’m not one of your boys.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Pat. “We just thought—”
“You, the Head, and Strange—”
“We just thought you could do with a rest.”
I looked at him, but he would not quite meet my eye. “A rest?” I said. I was beginning to feel annoyed. “Yes, I see that it might be very convenient if I did take a few weeks off. Give things time to settle down? Give you a chance to smooth a few ruffled feathers? Maybe pave the way for some of Mr. Strange’s new developments?”
I was right, which made him angry. He didn’t say anything, though I could tell he wanted to, and his face, already flushed, took on a deeper shade. “You’re slowing down, Roy,” he said. “Face it, you’re forgetting things. And you’re not as young as you were.”
“Is anyone?”
He frowned. “There’s been talk of having you suspended.”
“Really?” That would be Strange, or maybe Devine, with his eye to room fifty-nine and the last outpost of my little empire. “I’m sure you told them what would happen if they tried. Suspension, without a formal warning?” I’m not a Union man, but Sourgrape is, and so is the Head. “He who lives by the book dies by the book. And they know it.”
Once more, Pat did not meet my eye. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this,” he said. “But you haven’t left me any choice.”
“Tell me what?” I said, knowing the answer.
“A warning’s been drafted,” he said.
“Drafted? By whom?” As if I didn’t know. Strange, of course; the man who had already devalued my department, downsized my timetable, and who now hoped to put me to rest while the Suits and Beards took over the world.
Bishop sighed. “Listen, Roy, you’re not the only one with problems.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “Some of us, however—”
Some of us, however, are paid more than others to deal with them. It’s true, though, that we rarely think of our colleagues’ private lives. Children, lovers, homes. The boys are always astonished to see us in a context outside of St. Oswald’s—buying groceries in a supermarket; at the barber’s; in a pub. Astonished, and mildly delighted, like spotting a famous person in the street. I saw you in town on Saturday, sir! As if they imagined us hanging up behind our form room doors, like discarded gowns, between Friday night and Monday morning.
To tell the truth, I am somewhat guilty of this myself. But seeing Bishop today—I mean, really seeing him; his rugbyman’s bulk gone half to fat in spite of that daily run and his face drawn, drawn, the face of a man who has never quite understood how easily fourteen slipped away and fifty settled in—I felt an unexpected pang of sympathy.
“Listen, Pat. I know you’re—”
But Bishop had already turned to go, slouching off down the Upper Corridor, hands in
pockets, broad shoulders slightly bowed. It was a pose I’d seen him adopt many times when the school rugby team lost against St. Henry’s, but I knew Bishop too well to believe that the grief implicit in his posture was anything other than a pose. No, he was angry. At himself, perhaps—he’s a good man, even if he is the Head’s man—but most of all, at my lack of cooperation, school spirit, and understanding for his own difficult position.
Oh, I felt for him—but you don’t get to be Second Master in a place like St. Oswald’s without encountering the occasional problem or two. He knows that the Head would be only too pleased to make a scapegoat of me—I don’t have much of a career ahead of me, after all, plus I’m expensive and nearing retirement. My replacement would come as a relief to many—my replacement a young chap, a corporate Suit; trained in IT; veteran of many courses; streamlined for rapid promotion. My little malaise must have given them hope. At last, an excuse to be rid of old Straitley without causing too much fuss. A dignified retirement on grounds of ill health; silver plaque; sealed envelope; flattering address to the Common Room.
As for the business of Knight and the rest—well! What could be easier than to lay the blame—ever so quietly—on a former colleague? Before your time; one of the old school, you know, awfully good chap, but set in his ways; not a team player. Not one of us.
Well, you were wrong, Headmaster. I have no intention of going gently into retirement. And as for your written warning, pone ubi sol non lucet. I’ll score my Century, or die in the attempt. One for the Honors Board.
I was still in a martial frame of mind when I got home this evening, and the invisible finger was back, poking gently but persistently at my wishbone. I took two of the pills Bevans prescribed and washed them down with a small medicinal sherry before settling down to some fifth-form marking. It was dark by the time I had finished. At seven I stood up to draw the curtains, when a movement from the garden caught my eye. I leaned closer to the window.
Mine is a long, narrow garden, a seeming throwback to the days of strip farming, with a hedge on one side, a wall on the other, and a variety of shrubs and vegetables growing more or less at random in between. At the far end there is a big old horse chestnut tree, overhanging Dog Lane, which is separated from the back garden by a fence. Under the tree is a patch of mossy grass on which I like to sit in summer (or did, before the process of getting up again became so cumbersome) and a small and decrepit shed in which I keep a few things.
I have never actually been burgled. I don’t suppose I have anything really worth stealing, unless you count books, which are generally held to be worthless by the criminal fraternity. But Dog Lane has a reputation; there is a pub at the corner, which generates noise; a fish-and-chips shop at the far end, which generates litter; and of course, Sunnybank Park Comprehensive close nearby, which generates almost anything you can think of, including noise, litter, and a twice-daily stampede past my house that would put even the most unruly Ozzies to shame. I tend to be generally tolerant of this. I even turn a blind eye to the occasional intruder hopping over the fence during the conker season. A horse chestnut tree in October belongs to everyone, Sunnybankers included.
But this was different. For a start, school was long past. It was dark and rather cold, and there was something unpleasantly furtive about the movement I had glimpsed.
Pressing my face to the window, I saw three or four shapes at the far end of the garden, not large enough to be fully adult. Boys, then; now I could hear their voices, very dimly, through the glass.
That surprised me. Usually conker hunters are quick and unobtrusive. Most people on the lane know my profession, and respect it; and the Sunnybankers to whom I have spoken about their littering habits have rarely, if ever, re-offended.
I rapped sharply on the glass. Now they would run, I thought; but instead the figures fell still, and a few seconds later I heard—unmistakeably—jeering from under the horse chestnut tree.
“That does it.” In four strides I was at the door. “Oy!” I yelled in my best magisterial voice. “What the hell do you boys think you’re doing!”
More laughter from the bottom of the garden. Two ran, I think—I saw their brief outline, etched in neon, as they climbed the fence. The other two remained, secure in the darkness and reassured by the length of the narrow path.
“I said what are you doing?” It was the first time in years that a boy—even a Sunnybanker—had defied me. I felt a surge of adrenaline and the invisible finger poked at me again. “Come here at once!”
“Or what?” The voice was brash and youthful. “Think you can take me, you fat bastard?”
“Like fuck he can, he’s too old!”
Rage gave me speed; I set off down the path like a buffalo, but it was dark, the path was greasy, my foot in its leather-soled slipper shot to the side, taking me off balance.
I did not fall, but it was close. I wrenched my knee, and when I looked back the two remaining boys were climbing over the fence, in a clap and flutter of laughter, like ugly birds taking wing.
8
St Oswald’s Grammar School for BoysThursday, 14th October
It was a small incident. A minor irritant, that’s all. No damage was done. And yet—There was a time when I would have caught those boys, whatever it took, and dragged them back by the ears. Not now, of course. Sunnybankers know their rights. Even so, it’s the first time in many years that my authority has been so deliberately challenged. They scent weakness. All boys do. And it was a mistake to run like that, in the dark, after what Bevans told me. It looked rushed, undignified. A student teacher’s mistake. I should have crept out into Dog Lane and caught them as they climbed over the fence. They were only boys—thirteen or fourteen, judging by their voices. Since when did Roy Straitley allow a few boys to defy him?
I brooded on that for longer than it deserved. Perhaps that was why I slept so badly; perhaps the sherry, or perhaps I was still troubled by my conversation with Bishop. In any case I awoke un-refreshed; washed, dressed, made toast, and drank a mug of tea as I waited for the postman. Sure enough, at seven-thirty, the letter box clattered, and sure enough, there was the typed sheet on St. Oswald’s notepaper, signed E. Gray, Headmaster, B.A. (Hons), and Dr. B. D. Pooley, Chairman of Govs, the duplicate of which (it said) would be inserted into my personal record for a period of 12 (twelve) months, after which time it would be removed from file, on condition that no further complaint(s) had been lodged and at the discretion of the governing body, blah, blah, blah-dy bloody blah.
On a normal day, it would not have concerned me. Fatigue, however, made me vulnerable, and it was without enthusiasm—and a knee that still ached from the evening’s misadventure—that I set off on foot to St. Oswald’s. Without quite knowing why, I made a short detour into Dog Lane, perhaps to check for signs of last night’s intruders.
It was then that I saw it. I could hardly have missed it; a swastika, sketched onto the side of the fence in red marker pen, with the word HITLER below it in exuberant letters. It was recent, then; almost certainly the work of last night’s Sunnybankers—if, indeed, they were Sunnybankers. But I had not forgotten the caricature tacked up onto the form notice board; the cartoon of myself as a fat little mortar-boarded Nazi, and my conviction at the time that Knight was behind it.
Could Knight have found out where I lived? It wouldn’t be hard; my phone number is in the school handbook, and dozens of boys must have seen me walking home. All the same I couldn’t believe that Knight—Knight, of all people—would dare to do something like this.
Teaching’s a game of bluff, of course; but it would take a better player than Knight to check me. No, it had to be a coincidence, I thought; some marker-happy Sunnybank Parker slouching home to his fish-and-chips, who saw my nice clean fence and hated its unblemished surface.
At the weekend, I’ll sand and repaint it with wipe-clean gloss. It needed doing anyway, and as any teacher knows, one piece of graffiti invites another. But I couldn’t help feeling, as I walked to St.
Oswald’s, that all the unpleasantness of the past few weeks—Fallowgate, the Examiner campaign, last night’s intrusion, Anderton-Pullitt’s ridiculous peanut, even the Headmaster’s prim little letter of this morning—were somehow—obscurely, irrationally, deliberately—related.
Schools, like ships, are riddled with superstitions, and St. Oswald’s more than most. The ghosts, perhaps; or the rituals and traditions that keep the old wheels creaking away. But this term has given us nothing but bad luck right from the beginning. There’s a Jonah on board. If only I knew who it was.
When I entered the Common Room this morning, I found it suspiciously quiet. Word of my warning must have got around, because conversations fell silent throughout the day every time I entered a room, and there was a certain gleam in Sourgrape’s eye that boded ill for someone.
The Nations avoided me; Grachvogel looked furtive; Scoones was at his most aloof; and even Pearman seemed most unlike his cheery self. Kitty too looked especially preoccupied—she barely acknowledged my greeting as I came in, and it bothered me rather; Kitty and I have always been chums, and I hoped nothing had happened to change that. I didn’t think it had—after all, the little upsets of the past week hadn’t touched her—but there was definitely something in her face as she looked up and saw me. I sat beside her with my tea (the vanished Jubilee mug having been replaced by a plain brown one from home), but she seemed engrossed in her pile of books and hardly said a word.
Lunch was a mournful affair of vegetables—thanks to the vindictive Bevans—followed by a sugarless cup of tea. I took the cup with me to room fifty-nine, though most of the boys were outside, except for Anderton-Pullitt, happily engrossed in his airplane book, and Waters, Pink, and Lemon, who were quietly playing cards in one corner.
I had been marking for about ten minutes when I looked up and saw the rabbit Meek, standing beside the desk with a pink slip in his hand and a look of mingled hate and deference in his pale, bearded face.