And so, after School, I went to find Winter, my erstwhile partner-in-crime. I found him outside, by the bins, and by the time I’d explained my difficulties, he was laughing so hard he could barely speak.
‘The computer doesn’t think for itself,’ he said at last. ‘It’s only as smart as you are. Unless you know just how to look, you’re like a budgie with a mirror, bashing your head against the glass.’
Not a complimentary assessment of my technical know-how, but all the same, quite an accurate one. I’m beginning to wonder how Gloria’s boy ended up being a cleaner at all.
‘Do you know about computers?’ I said.
He smiled. ‘What do you need to know?’
I told him. ‘Of course, I’ll pay for your time. Consider it research,’ I said.
‘Research?’ said Winter. ‘I’ll do it for free. Consider it a favour.’
I wonder what I have begun. Roy Straitley, the subversive. You’d as soon expect the gargoyles on the Chapel roof to rebel, as to think that I would do anything that might harm St Oswald’s. But the New Head is a parasite. The Honours Boards; the old ways; our relationship with the boys; everything is being siphoned away, to be replaced by mixed classes; Suits; computer stations; e-mail; paper-free offices; Abuse Gurus – things that may look good on paper, but that never touch the heart of the place, because St Oswald’s has always run, not on paper, but on blood, sweat, chalk dust, work and most of all on loyalty – loyalty to the boys, the School, and most of all, to each other—
I may be playing the role of Canute, trying vainly to hold back the tide. But nevertheless, I have to believe that I can save St Oswald’s. Any weapon is fair game – a garden gnome; a computer. For years I have resisted change in the hope that it may pass me by. Now I must be the agent of change, uncomfortable as that may be. I find myself thinking back to that old joke of Harrington’s: How many St Oswald’s Masters does it take to change a lightbulb? Perhaps the question should really be: How many lightbulbs will it take to expose Johnny Harrington’s infamy?
All schools have their skeletons. St Oswald’s is no exception. Most of the time, we try our best to keep them in the closet. But this time, the only recourse we have is to throw open all the closets, light as many bulbs as we can and catch the vermin as it comes out.
Winter agreed to call round later this evening, after work. He told me he’d look up Harrington, using my staff workstation. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the internet was the means of snaring Harrington, but Winter has a way with technology, and I cannot afford to overlook anything that may be useful. To whom was Harrington speaking last night on his flashy mobile phone? And where did he go afterwards?
Winter arrived at seven o’clock, by which time it was already dark. I forget how fast the nights draw in at this time of year; how much earlier autumn starts than it always used to. My partner-in-crime was carrying a blue folder containing a number of printed sheets.
‘You found all that today?’ I said.
Winter shrugged. ‘It isn’t much. The New Head’s online profile is very clean. He doesn’t use social networking sites – at least, not under his own name. He doesn’t have a MySpace, or a blog. He doesn’t use Friends Reunited, although he is mentioned there once or twice. He sometimes buys books on Amazon, but never leaves a review. As for Google—’
I stopped him there, and explained that he’d lost me at ‘online’.
He grinned at that. ‘Sorry. I’ll start again.’
Half an hour later I was, if not fluent, then at least vaguely conversant in the language of the internet. Winter is, of course, a native speaker. He tells me he spends hours online every night, ‘posting’ and ‘blogging’ and so on.
‘But what does it achieve?’ I said, genuinely mystified.
He shrugged. ‘It’s a community. People online interact in much the same way they do in any other community, except that they get to choose who they meet and who they interact with. In real life, you might never meet the handful of compatible people who share your specific interests. Online, you can find them in seconds. You can engage. You can be someone else. You can pretend, for an hour or two, that you’re not stuck here in Malbry.’
How interesting. I had no idea. I wonder if Winter has any friends outside of his virtual community. I suspect his social skills may be lacking; or maybe he simply prefers to be ‘someone else’, as he puts it.
‘Where would you rather be?’ I said.
Winter gave a wry smile. ‘I sometimes think of Hawaii,’ he said. ‘Did you know the Hawaiian archipelago is the longest island chain in the world?’
I shook my head. I’ve been to France a couple of times (mostly on Eric’s insistence) to help out with School trips, but otherwise, St Oswald’s has been my life’s adventure, remaining as exotic now as it was on the first day.
‘Planning a holiday?’ I said.
I thought Winter looked wistful. ‘Maybe someday. Not right now. The flights are pretty expensive.’
‘Maybe you’ll win the Lottery.’
‘Maybe one day I’ll get to play.’
I looked at the file. It contained all we had on little Johnny Harrington. A sparse, if spotless record of online purchases (mostly books); membership of a golf club; donations to several charities, including Survivors and Save the Children; a stay-at-home wife called Elizabeth, prominent in local good works, who likes to buy cashmere sweaters and who lists her calories online. Both his parents are alive and living in the Cotswolds. He has no siblings, and as far as we know, no remaining ties with Malbry.
‘Is that all you found?’ I asked.
Winter opened the blue file. ‘No, sir. I also found this.’ He passed me a printed facsimile of the Malbry Examiner.
Well, you know the page, I suppose. It’s the page everyone remembers; with Harry in that photograph. Not the most flattering picture, taken on a Sports Day in September ’81, with Harry in shorts and a running singlet, each of his arms flung around a boy. One of those boys was Harrington, impeccable even after his run, the parting in his hair as straight as if the Romans had built it, and even after all this time, I felt a stab of irrational rage at the boy; his loathsome smoothness. The other boy at Harry’s side was a third-year boy from Harry’s form called Tencel or Tessel, whom I’d never taught. Standing apart from the little group was Charlie Nutter, looking away as if at something beyond the frame. And in the background was David Spikely, whose asthma excluded him from Games, grinning at the camera. I wondered how he’d managed to get into the picture at all. He certainly hadn’t run the race. Maybe he’d come to watch his friends. Probably the photographer hadn’t even noticed him.
Winter looked at me curiously. ‘You must have been aware of this,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
I sighed. ‘I meant to tell you,’ I said. My heart was still pounding alarmingly. The invisible finger, having poked, moved on. ‘But not tonight, if you don’t mind. It’s rather a difficult story to tell, and I think we both need time to prepare.’
He nodded. ‘Another time, then, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mr Winter.’
When Winter had left, I poured myself a glass of wine and made myself a Welsh rarebit, and read one of Harry’s old diaries. Nothing much there; except for a note about Eric Scoones, who was in charge of the French film club, showing La Cage aux Folles, and a sketch of Dr Devine as a drill sergeant, sharp nose twitching fretfully, watching a phalanx of schoolboys running laps around the Quad. From his mouth came a speech bubble, containing the words Quick, March! Beneath it, the legend: Metro-gnome.
My eyesight was protesting by then. Or maybe it was the smoke from the fire. And so I put the book away and thought about my partner-in-crime, alone in his dead mother’s house, his face illuminated in blue from the glow of the computer screen, talking with his invisible friends. It seems a very lonely way for a man of his age to live. And yet he seems to enjoy it. Of course, he may feel the same about me. But I have St Oswald’s. For now, at least – a
nd for ever, I hope—
Thank gods, I have St Oswald’s.
PART FIVE
Veritas nunquam perit.
(SENECA)
1
January 1982
It was the morning of New Year’s Day when the police arrived at my door. Two officers, both men, both with the look of officials with an unpleasant task to perform.
‘Roy Straitley?’
‘Mea culpa,’ I said.
Perhaps not the happiest choice of words. But I had been expecting them. I was Nutter’s form-master. And it had been a couple of days now since the boy’s disappearance. Two officers, one old, one young, both with the same appraising eyes – they might almost have been father and son. I invited them in, but they would not sit down, remaining in the hallway, like door-to-door salesmen with nothing to sell.
I told them what I knew, which wasn’t much; that the boy had been away from School during the last two weeks of term; that I had been making enquiries.
The elder of the two men, a man in his fifties called Stackhouse, said: ‘Why’s that?’
I explained that one of Nutter’s friends had expressed concern.
‘Concern about what?’
I shook my head. ‘He just thought Nutter wasn’t himself.’
‘And what do you think he meant by that?’
I thought back to my interview with little Johnny Harrington. ‘I’m really not sure,’ I said at last. ‘Something about not going to church, and seeming preoccupied.’
Stackhouse wrote something in his notebook. ‘And did you speak to Charlie Nutter about this?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
I thought he sounded unduly sharp. But then, I thought, the British police were trained in the art of suspicion. It was their job to question and probe, and their close proximity to the baser elements of the community meant that trust and goodwill were not likely to feature high on their list of priorities. The only real contact with the police I’d had in my professional life was when Sergeant Rose, the liaison officer, came in once a term to take Assembly.
Sergeant Rose was twinkly-eyed, friendly and nearing retirement. His role was to establish links with St Oswald’s and the community, and try to recruit as many of our less academic boys as possible. He was also a consummate actor, and on the few occasions when we’d needed one of our boys to receive a salutary shock, he had dropped his cloak of affability to reveal the gimlet-eyed lawman beneath. I liked Sergeant Rose, but did not believe for a moment that his act was anything other than a clever PR strategy. Stackhouse and his partner, Noakes, were not from the PR branch of the force, and their eyes were frankly hostile in their flat, expressionless faces – much like those of boys in my class forced to study Vergil against their inclination.
‘Won’t you sit down and have tea?’ I said.
Stackhouse shook his head. ‘No thanks. Lots to do this morning. You were telling us why you didn’t speak to Charlie Nutter when you had the chance.’
I started to explain about the end of term, and absences, and School reports, and commitments. Stackhouse wrote it down in his book. Noakes just nodded occasionally, as if he rather sympathized. I realized later that the nod was merely a meaningless tic, indicative neither of understanding nor approval.
‘Did anyone else speak to the boy?’ he said. ‘A colleague, maybe?’
‘I think Harry Clarke may have had a word. He knows him better than I do.’
Stackhouse and Noakes exchanged glances. ‘Thank you, Mr Straitley,’ said Noakes. ‘You’ve been extremely helpful.’
That made me feel slightly uneasy. I didn’t feel I’d told them much. But I had seen the face of the older man as soon as I’d mentioned Harry’s name, and the way his eyes had lit.
‘Is there news of Charlie?’ I said. ‘Does anyone know where he might have gone?’
Stackhouse’s face was expressionless. ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that,’ he said. ‘I shan’t disturb you any longer.’
Even then, I think I sensed that something bad was happening. The days between Christmas and the New Year had always seemed dark and ominous; but now, with my father growing increasingly ill and one of my boys missing from home, the darkness had grown like a shadow. But one boy’s disappearance was far from being headline news. A bombing by Welsh nationalists; mass disruption from the snow; the imminent threat of a miners’ strike – all took precedence over one missing boy. Nutter appeared on Page 4, where, in the absence of real news, speculation was all we had. A number of theories had been voiced, including the possibility that this might be a kidnapping, designed to put pressure on Nutter, MP, whose outspoken views – on Northern Ireland, for instance – might have attracted attention. But Nutter was neither interesting, nor photogenic, nor young enough to win readers’ hearts, and so, for the first few days, at least, other things took centre stage.
One was my father’s condition. The other was Eric, who’d been facing troubles of his own, and whose mother (with whom he lived) was already beginning to show the first signs of dementia. Eric was devoted to his mother, and, knowing I’d experienced something similar with my own parents, had taken to calling on me at home for reassurance and advice. Not that I had much to give; but over that Christmas he called at my house every couple of days or so. He called by again on New Year’s Eve – the day after Nutter disappeared – looking, as always, slightly harassed.
Eric knew Charlie Nutter, of course, although he’d never taught him, and the boy’s disappearance had obviously upset him more than I would have expected. We talked about it for some time, speculating fruitlessly on why the boy might have run away – neither of us dared believe that Charlie Nutter might be dead – until I happened to mention my conversation with Harry on the subject of Nutter’s sexuality.
‘Did you tell the police?’ Eric said.
I shook my head. ‘Is it relevant?’
Eric shrugged. ‘You hear stories,’ he said.
‘What kind of stories?’
‘I don’t know. Perverts, preying on young boys.’ He lit a Gauloise. He’d recently taken up smoking, mostly, I thought, to calm his nerves. Eric could be sensitive about the most unlikely things, and his mother’s illness, the end of term, and Nutter’s disappearance all seemed to have added to the strain.
He said: ‘Have you spoken to Harry yet?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you think I should?’
Eric shook his head. ‘No. I think you should keep well away. Because if that boy turns up dead, they’re going to be asking questions.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘Why? You think because Harry’s gay—’
Eric gave me an odd look – scornful, and yet somehow envious. ‘You always were an idiot, Straits,’ he said, using my nickname for the first time in over twenty years. ‘You never could help jumping in with both feet, when you should have run like the wind.’
Later, I wondered what he’d meant. Was he accusing Harry? Was he, like the Chaplain, afraid that Harry might corrupt the boys?
I sometimes wondered what might have happened if I’d gone to see Harry that night. Could I have warned him, somehow? Or would that just have made things worse? Of course, there’s no way of knowing now. Hindsight is a cruel gift, always arriving much too late. And so, when Eric had gone, I did what I always did at that time of year: I started to prepare for the new term. Class lists; lesson plans; Sixth-Form essays to be marked. I did not forget Charlie Nutter – but I muted him, like a radio, while other things took precedence.
And then, on the third of January, came the call I’d been dreading. My father had been taken ill. Pneumonia, the doctors said; but I knew better. He’d given up. I’d known in my heart that it was the end as soon as I’d seen him at Christmas, and part of me was as relieved as the other part was guilty. I went at once to Meadowbank, where I waited with him for twenty-four hours. Typically, he chose to die during the fifteen-minute break I’d taken to pick up some supplies – a toothbrush, a
packet of Gauloises, a sandwich, the local paper – so that when I returned, it was over, and he was already cooling.
How very like my father, I thought. How like him to withdraw from even that small, final contact. Throughout his life, I could not remember him touching me, except to shake hands. And now he was gone, I couldn’t find the grief that I was meant to feel: only a sense of deep fatigue and a headache that refused to shift.
I couldn’t face going home straight away. I ate my sandwich (tomato and cheese), although I’d lost my appetite. I drank a cup of Meadowbank tea – which always tasted mysteriously of fish – and read the paper I’d just bought. And that was how I came to learn that a body had been found in one of the White City clay pits – the body of a young boy yet to be identified . . .
2
January 1982
I don’t want to discuss that now. Have some decorum, Mousey. New Year is a Fresh Start, filled with Resolutions. Number One: no more clay pits: no more hanging around playing games. This year is an Important Year, so my father tells me. I’ll be fifteen. I need to Shape Up. Number Two: no more moping around Mr Clarke’s room at lunchtimes. He’s just a teacher, not a friend. He doesn’t know shit about me. Number Three: Get a Girlfriend. Get my parents off my back.
I’m also going to tear three pages out of my St Oswald’s diary. That’s because this is a Fresh Start, and we’re going to forget about that. Instead, I will think about New Year; ride my new bike around the estate; do some homework from Straitley, who seems to think that Latin should play a role in every part of my life; then maybe a trip to the pictures (Excalibur), with Goldie and his girlfriend necking on the back row and me in front with the popcorn, pretending not to notice.