‘Come here often, do you?’
He shrugged. I thought he looked uncomfortable. He had fixed up the old car with pieces of carpet, a mattress and some bundles of magazines to make a decent-looking den. From a distance, it just looked like another old wreck. It was pretty cool, actually.
‘Don’t tell my mum,’ said Poodle. ‘She thinks I’m over at your place.’
‘That’s OK,’ I told him. ‘My dad probably thinks I’m with you. Got any smokes?’
Poodle seemed to relax a bit. He had a packet of sherbet dabs, and some cigarettes, which we shared, sitting on the worn-out seats and watching the silent water. I’m not supposed to smoke, of course. Even though Dad does, in secret. But then again, I’m not supposed to read comic books, or listen to David Bowie, or look at pictures of ladies with their clothes off. All because of My Condition, of course. Still, it does occur to me that Dad might be just a little confused about what My Condition really is.
Poodle had left his magazine on the back seat of the old car. I don’t know much about cars, except that it was a soft-top, shredded by the elements. I also saw that Poodle had been doodling on his magazine, giving the cover girl a moustache and a massive cock and balls.
Poodle noticed me noticing, and made a grab for the magazine. I managed to hang on to it, though. I opened it, and saw the same kind of drawings inside. Oh, I thought. Maybe the red Flamingo girl from Church isn’t his type, after all.
Poodle went red. His acne scars looked almost white against the colour of his neck. He said: ‘It’s just a bit of fun. I’m not bent, or anything.’
‘Course not. And those other books – the ones hidden under the car seat – those are just Enid Blyton. Right?’
Poodle looked sick. He turned away. I guess he knew there was no point in denying it. The car seat was stuffed with magazines – some of them what my dad calls beefcake mags, but a couple of novels, too, with titles racy enough for dear old Dad to have himself a heart attack.
‘I thought you fancied that girl from Church. The one who plays guitar,’ I said.
He gave a sick little smile. ‘I wish. That would be so easy,’ he said. ‘I mean, she’d never look at me, but at least it would make me normal—’
‘Normal’s overrated,’ I said.
He looked depressed. ‘That’s not what Dad thinks. I’m expecting the Talk any day now. The one about how self-abuse sends you blind, and spots are just God’s way of telling you to take more cold showers.’
‘I know that talk,’ I said, and grinned. ‘I’ve been getting it since I was nine.’
‘I thought if I – you know – got rid of my curiosity—’
‘Then it would magically go away?’
He made a face. ‘It’s an addiction,’ he said. ‘An honest-to-Jesus addiction. You let it in, just once, and – poof! It’s part of you for ever. Don’t tell my dad. Don’t tell anyone. I’ll kill myself if he finds out. I mean it. You’d be a murderer.’
‘Of course I won’t tell,’ I promised him.
‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
So Poodle has a Condition, too. And no, I didn’t mean to tell. But schools are funny places. It’s hard to keep a secret here. Tell one person a secret, you’re apt to become notorious. I guess that’s what happened at Netherton Green. Still, that’s all in the past now. That was an aberration. A flare-up of My Condition, which I now have under control.
But I’ve been watching Poodle. I watch him in class, when he’s doodling. I watch him at Break, in the schoolyard. I watch him in Church as he’s looking up at Jesus, naked on the cross, and I know just what he’s thinking. Poor Poodle, lusting for Jesus. So much easier to lust after the red Flamingo girl who plays the guitar so prettily. But God doesn’t like it easy. God likes to make things difficult. Instead of making people good, he gave us the illusion of choice. Way to go, God. Nice one. That’s what we get for trusting in You.
I went up to Harry’s room today, to tell him about Mr Scoones and my two-week lunchtime detention. He laughed when I told him about the essay.
‘A little too creative, perhaps, for the good folk of St Oswald’s.’
I shrugged. ‘I guess so. I’ll miss you, sir.’
He laughed again. ‘You mean you’ll miss my record collection. Tell you what, why don’t you borrow one of my LPs, just to tide you over? But don’t scratch it. OK?’
I nodded. I knew how important Harry’s records were to him. Even more so than his copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four – with his handwritten notes inside.
‘What’s it going to be, then?’ he said.
‘Ziggy Stardust, please, sir.’
Mr Clarke laughed at that. ‘You’re insatiable,’ he said. ‘But let’s see what you think of this. I know you like the older stuff. You must be an old soul.’ And then he opened his briefcase – not the box with the records in – and carefully took out an album. ‘Diamond Dogs. I think you’ll like this one,’ he said. ‘It’s very dark and dystopian. Ziggy Stardust meets Nineteen Eighty-Four. Human beings in their animal forms cavorting at the end of the world.’
I looked at the album cover. Well, I guess you know what it’s like. Strange and ugly and vicious and true and beautiful all at the same time. And he had seen it and thought of me, just as he’d thought of me when he’d chosen the ugly apple.
He gave me that smile. You know the one.
‘Ready for me to blow your mind?’
‘Yes, sir. Yes, Harry,’ I said.
6
Michaelmas Term, 1981
And that was how Harry and I became friends. Just like that, in room 58, with ‘The Laughing Gnome’ on the turntable and the late-October sunshine coming in at the window. This may not seem unusual to those outside St Oswald’s, but to me it came as quite a surprise. Apart from Eric, I had no friends, merely colleagues and pupils. Not that I cared. I’d never been gregarious – even as a young man, I was happiest with my books, my wireless and my solitude.
Harry Clarke changed that. Over the weeks and months and years we saw each other every day; not just in the mornings, but after School, where we would sit in Harry’s room and drink innumerable cups of tea, mark books, read the papers and talk until at last the cleaner – Gloria, with the Spanish eyes – would come to stand in the doorway, hands on shapely hips, and say: ‘Don’t you boys have a home to go to?’
What did we talk about? Everything. Politics; music; people; life. I learnt that he voted Labour (I supported Edward Heath); he liked Monty Python and Doctor Who; he listened to music on Radio 1 and went to hear bands play in Manchester. He hated football, liked cricket; read Kurt Vonnegut and Muriel Spark. He lived alone, in a terrace house down in Malbry Village. He’d never married; as far as I knew, his family was St Oswald’s.
Sometimes we would go out for a drink with Eric – who even then was fond of a glass or two of claret – to our local, the Thirsty Scholar, still reassuringly unchanged, with its leather armchairs by the fire and battle-scarred old tables. That was where all the Masters went – except perhaps for Dr Devine, who either didn’t drink at all, or whose dignity forbade him to be seen in the company of lesser beings – and some of my happiest memories are of that place, and the three of us, and the laughter that came so easily whenever Harry was around.
Some exceptional teachers can inspire that kind of affection. Pat Bishop was one of them; so too was Harry Clarke. Some men you trust instinctively, wholly and without question; which was why, a decade later, when Johnny Harrington came to me with his sinister tale of possession, I went at once to Harry Clarke, certain he would know what to do.
I found him that lunchtime in his room, surrounded by boys, as usual. Harry rarely went in to lunch, but spent the time in his form-room, drinking tea and listening to records.
He looked up and smiled as I came in. ‘Aha! Mr Straitley! Just in time to resolve a discussion. Status Quo or Procul Harum? As a Latinist, you should know.’
‘It’s actually procul harun,’ I said. ‘But I know it’s all Greek to you.’ I turned to the little group of boys. ‘Gentlemen, I hate to interrupt such profound and meaningful study, but I need a word with Mr Clarke. The status quo can be resumed at a later date.’
The boys accorded my lame joke all the hilarity it deserved. Left alone with Harry, I said: ‘It’s Harrington. I need your advice.’
‘Oh.’ Harry looked thoughtful. ‘How is he?’
I shrugged. ‘He came to me today with a tale about a friend, and demonic possession.’
Harry grinned. ‘Possession? Doesn’t surprise me. Harrington Senior’s a tough nut. That happy-clappy church of his is Old Testament through and through. Fire and brimstone. Death to the queers. Women in their rightful place. Speaking in tongues; mass hysteria; casting out demons from teenagers using nothing but faith and a Gospel choir. It’s a miracle Johnny’s the way he is.’
‘And what way is that?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘I know you’ve had trouble recently. But Johnny isn’t a bad kid. A bit uptight, perhaps, but sound. Has a good head on his shoulders, in spite of his unfortunate parentage.’ Harry opened the desk drawer and brought out a tin of Quality Street. ‘Here. Have one of these.’
Harry maintained that you could tell a man’s character by the chocolates he chose. I took a strawberry cream; soft-centred under a bitter chocolate coating. He took a purple Brazil nut.
‘So what exactly did Johnny say?’
I told him. He ate his chocolate.
‘Do you think he was talking about himself?’
‘Who else could it be?’ I said. ‘It’s not as if he has dozens of friends. There’s only David Spikely and—’
‘Charlie Nutter,’ said Harry.
‘That’s right. Charlie Nutter,’ I said. ‘Do you know anything I don’t?’
Once more, Harry looked thoughtful. ‘He used to come here every day,’ he said. ‘Now he barely says hello. I got the feeling that maybe he was going through a rough patch, but he hasn’t said anything.’
‘What kind of a rough patch?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Some boys find it hard to come out. Especially the son of a man like Stephen Nutter, MP. Maybe he came out to Harrington. And maybe Harrington didn’t know how to process the facts, except through his father’s preaching. Some people find it easier to believe in demonic possession than to believe a friend might be gay.’
For a moment I wasn’t quite sure what he’d said. ‘What do you mean, gay?’
He smiled. ‘Sometimes you just know,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it shows early. And Charlie Nutter – let’s just say I always thought Charlie was different. We talked about it once or twice.’
‘You think Charlie Nutter’s—’
‘Gay. You can say it aloud, you know.’
His smile robbed the words of a possible sting. And remember, this was a long time ago: the word used far less commonly – and perhaps with more respect – than today.
He smiled again at my puzzled look. ‘Go on. Say it aloud. It helps. At least, it always did for me.’
Once more, for a moment I paused. ‘I’m still not sure what – oh.’
Oh. This may be hard to imagine now. But things were very different then. I’d never thought of my colleagues – my friends – in any other context than that of St Oswald’s. I’d never been to Harry’s house, or asked him about his personal life. It was different with Eric Scoones. We’d been schoolboys together. I’d known him since we were first-year Ozzies in blazers and caps. I’d been to his birthday parties, in the little White City house he still shares with his mother. We’d fought for the same scholarships; faced our bullies together; waged imaginary wars; drawn legions of stick-men across generations of Latin books, and if it had ever occurred to me that he might be somehow – different, I would never have mentioned it. But Harry – I’m not proud of this, but it floored me completely.
He saw my expression. ‘Really, Roy? Did it never cross your mind?’
I had to admit that it had not. ‘Who else have you told about this?’ I said. ‘Did you tell Nutter? Or Harrington? Or anybody else on the staff?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t go out of my way to mention it, if that’s what you mean. But why should I lie? I’ve done nothing wrong—’
Of course, he was right. He’d done nothing wrong. But was he really so naïve as to think that would make a difference? Even nowadays, to admit to being a homosexual – especially when teaching in a boys’ school – is to incur suspicion and perhaps run the risk of dismissal. Twenty-four years ago, it was worse. Gay Liberation had barely begun. Harry knew the risk all right. He just didn’t seem to care.
He gave me a wry look. ‘Does it make a difference?’
‘No. No. Why should it?’ I lied.
The truth is that of course it did. It made me feel uncomfortable. I like to think I know languages, but this was a language I barely knew – the dialect of intimacy. I didn’t like Harry any the less for what he’d just admitted to me, but to know that I’d been his friend for ten years, and never even suspected—
Was I really so naïve? The thought was profoundly disturbing. I’d always thought myself rather a good judge of people. So how could I have overlooked something so fundamental – something, I now realized, so blatantly, stupidly obvious?
It occurred to me then that I, too, could be seen in the same light. I, too, was unmarried. I, too, spent my lunchtimes with the boys. Plus, I made no secret of the fact that I enjoyed Harry’s company. Could anyone – a colleague, perhaps – have ever considered that I might be gay? Could the boys have believed it? I am not proud of admitting it, but the very thought filled me with horror.
No, I am not the most liberal of men. I never had the chance to be. My parents were ordinary northern folk, the products of their generation. My upbringing was St Oswald’s, via a School bursary, then a dull university, then teaching in two lesser schools before St Oswald’s claimed me again. By the time I was forty-two, I was as institutionalized as my parents – both of them long-term residents at the Meadowbank old people’s home, not far out of Malbry.
Perhaps for that reason I appeared older than my years to Harry, whose background was very different, and whose lack of ambition and disregard for convention made him seem much younger than I. It strikes me now that one of the reasons I’m fond of young Allen-Jones is that he reminds me a little of Harry Clarke, especially in the eyes.
Harry took another Quality Street. ‘You have that look on your face,’ he said. ‘That anywhere-but-here look. It only makes a difference, you know, if you allow it to matter. We all find comfort where we can, and who’s to say that one kind of love is better, or more worthy?’
Of course he was right. I took his point. But this was all too personal, too unexpected for me to digest. We Tweed Jackets don’t like to talk about our innermost feelings. It’s one of the reasons I’d rather teach boys than a gaggle of Mulberry girls. Boys have a pleasing lack of depth; an emotional inarticulacy that means they talk about football; books; music; TV; computer games; but rarely matters of the heart. Of course I know they feel things; but, thank gods, they seldom share.
I said: ‘It’s none of my business, old man. It won’t make the slightest difference.’
He smiled, a little sadly, I thought. ‘Have another chocolate.’
7
September 12th, 2005
Another day of surprises as the assault upon St Oswald’s goes on. The first came just as I reached the School gates, which, as of today, are flanked with a billboard as big as a barn, depicting two young Spartans in St Oswald’s uniform, apparently conducting some kind of experiment involving test tubes, smoke and crème de menthe, below the giant slogan, Progress through Tradition.
I took a few moments to remember where I’d heard the phrase before; then I identified it as part of Harrington’s opening speech. Is this what he means by ‘rebranding’ the School? And what kind of a slogan is Progress through Tradition?
There were more of the photographs inside the School – the lobby and the Porter’s Lodge – all framed in light oak and depicting schoolboys engaged in a variety of exciting-looking extracurricular activities: theatre; sculpture; trampolining; training with the Army Cadets; competing in cricket and rugby. None of the boys were pupils of ours, being clean, well dressed and suspiciously lacking in skin blemishes of any kind. But it will impress the parents, of course – which, I suppose, is Harrington’s plan.
Personally, I prefer the battle-scarred lines of Honours Boards along the Lower and Middle Corridors, dating back to 1885 (not the School’s Foundation, of course, but when the New Building was opened), inscribed with the names of our old boys, in gold leaf, on a dark oak ground.
Over the years, some of these boards have faded in the sunlight, and the combined effects of damp and heat have caused the wood to warp and shift, breaking the varnished surfaces into a honeyed crackle glaze. This is most obvious in the boards that happen to face a window; with the result that the corridors have become chequered in light and shade, passing from gold to amber, to black, shifting like the seasons. Some of the names on the sunniest boards have faded into transparency, becoming insubstantial, legible only in sunlight. Others are almost as fresh as the day they were painted – traditionally, by a Sixth-Form boy studying calligraphy – and if you look under the frame, you’ll often find the signatures of the young artists, in Latin:
J. Jordan, scripsit.
P. Jolly, scripsit.
There is something very poignant about those names; those hopeful dates; those lists of awards. Boys who were dead before I was born immortalized in gold leaf, linking us all with past glories, every name a shared triumph, every scar a story. The School stopped commissioning Honours Boards when old Shitter Shakeshafte began his reign; but if you look on the Middle Corridor, opposite the window, you can still see, in the top right-hand corner, the name of R. H. Straitley – almost entirely faded away except for the last three letters, tucked into the side of the frame, gleaming out defiantly from a wedge of shadow.