After that, well, who knows? Maybe I’ll forget where it is. Maybe I’ll get on with my life, and take exams, and leave home, and get a job, and maybe one day get married, have kids, maybe even a cat or a dog. Sometimes I think about those things. Sometimes, it even seems possible to put aside my memories, to wrap them in layers of plastic; to bury them deep, where no one will look; where no one will think of looking.
Goodbye, Mr Clarke. Goodbye, clay pits. Goodbye, happy memories. Maybe I’ll be back for you, one day, when it’s safe to look. Till then, I’m putting childish things aside. Look after them for me, Mousey.
5
January 1982
I buried my father on January 6th, a Wednesday, in the morning. My mother was there, in a grey dress and two overcoats. She told me, very earnestly, that there was a thief at the Meadowbank home; that someone had been stealing her clothes.
‘The only way to stop them,’ she said, ‘is to wear everything all the time.’ She lowered her voice and smiled at me confidingly. ‘I’m wearing three pairs of tights,’ she said. ‘And look—’ She showed me her pockets, which, I saw, were bulging with socks. ‘Let’s see those fuckers steal from me now,’ she said, again with that childish, confiding smile. (My mother had once been a woman whose loathing of profanity had banned even the word ‘damn’ from our house. It was this, and not the fact that she seemed to have no idea of whose funeral we were attending, that finally brought it home to me that she and my father were equally gone.)
I put my arm around her. Under the thickness of the wool she felt like an armful of birds. She said: ‘Perhaps we’ll have rabbit tonight. You know how much you like it.’
I nodded and said: ‘That would be nice.’
I never saw her as lucid again.
The dead boy from the gravel pit was finally identified. He was a boy from Sunnybank Park, an undersized fifteen-year-old with the unpromising name of Lee Bagshot. He too made the Malbry Examiner – not the front page, but the third, next to the news of a series of burglaries in Pog Hill and a drunken driver in Huddersfield. I vaguely remember his photograph: the mullet; the V-necked pullover; the pinched and grinning little face.
Lee Bagshot was the son of Marie Bagshot (30), a shopgirl from White City, and John ‘Lefty’ Sykes (32), a self-employed plumber from Barnsley. Lee Bagshot spent his time between his mother’s house and his grandparents’, and due to a confusion over whose turn it was, his absence between December 30th and January 4th had gone unnoticed on both sides.
There were no tearful eulogies for Lee Bagshot; no vigils; no claims that he had ever been promising or popular. The mother appeared on Nationwide, pleading, a little shrilly perhaps, for the clay pits to be filled in. She was not a powerful advocate. She had bleached hair and too much make-up and seemed to be wearing every piece of jewellery she possessed. And yet there was something in her eyes that Nutter, MP, had never shown, not even at the height of the search for his son. At the time, I thought it was confusion, or guilt, or maybe just the excitement of being on TV. Now I think perhaps it was grief – the kind of grief that is hard and dry-eyed and belongs with those pebble-dashed houses with their bleak little squares of lawn and the steel shutters on the windows to make sure the stones don’t crack the glass.
‘He were allus going down to them pits,’ she kept saying, as if it excused the fact that for nearly a week she had partied, and gone out with her friends, and smoked, and drunk beer, and slept with several different men, and twice gone to the beauty shop without even knowing her son was dead, without even asking herself where he was—
‘I telled ’im,’ she said. ‘I kept tellin’ ’im. But he were a lad, they dun’t listen.’
He wasn’t the only one, it seemed. Nobody listened to Marie. If Mrs Nutter had spoken out – elegant Mrs Nutter, with her round vowels and her place on the governing bodies of the choral society and the Women’s Institute – then things might have been different. As it was, the clay pits stayed as they were for seven more years, after which the council had them filled in, and grassed over the place where they’d been to make a park that nobody used, except for youngsters up to no good. Lee Bagshot’s case was quickly closed. The coroner ruled it an accident, and life went on as usual.
Well, not quite as usual. The fact was that we’d had a shock. One of our own had disappeared, and so far, the grapevine had failed us. But one of the things about a school is that nothing stays secret for ever. Knowledge filters through in the end, searching out the weak links, following the path of least resistance. And our particular weak link was the Chaplain of St Oswald’s; a man whose goodwill was never in doubt, but whose ability to keep a secret, even when given in confidence, was very far from reliable.
St Oswald’s Chaplain has never been what you’d call a firebrand. Even twenty-four years ago, Dr Burke was more of a liberal than anything else, although this may have been because he never really believed in the world outside St Oswald’s. Devine, a Methodist who disapproves of the Chaplain’s High Church leanings, has been known to call him ‘that old Papist’, which is slightly unfair, given that he and Devine have only a few years between them. Nor is the Chaplain a Catholic, although his penchant for incense and candles might seem a little too florid for a plain old School Chaplain.
But this is perhaps what made Harry Clarke come to him with his secret; that comforting sense of authority; that whiff of the confessional. Harry had been a Catholic, once – he still took comfort in the Church, even though she had proved to be a rather judgemental parent. And the Chaplain kept his mouth shut for fully two weeks before he slipped – after which the news had spread all around St Oswald’s. Not only was Harry Clarke a practising homosexual, but for the few weeks preceding the Christmas break, he had befriended Nutter, talking to him, lending him books, even inviting him to his house. And that was where the boy had been found, a week after his disappearance . . .
6
January 1982
Harry told me the story himself. Of course I heard it later, in court, but by then it had bloated and festered, poisoned by time and circumstance. What Harry told me was simple: a single sequence of events, as yet untainted by the press. I had no reason to think it anything other than the truth: whatever else he may have been, Harry Clarke wasn’t a liar.
He’d come home late on New Year’s Eve to discover there’d been a break-in. A pane in his back door had been smashed, though there were no signs of a burglary. However, on entering the house, he found someone on the sofa: it was Charlie Nutter, asleep and bundled in a parka.
‘Why didn’t you phone the boy’s parents?’ It was the obvious question.
‘I knew there was trouble at home,’ Harry said. ‘I didn’t want to wake him.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
Harry shrugged. Then he took from his pocket a folded pamphlet, cheaply printed on pink A4 paper. ‘Go on, take a look,’ he said, and handed me the pamphlet. The title read: HOMOSEXUAL, HELLBOUND.
I still remember it, twenty-four years on; that nasty little pamphlet. Most of its kind are ridiculous; badly written, badly spelt; filled with inappropriate capitalizations. This one was not: the style was good; the grammar flawless; the argument clear and almost reasonable.
Homosexuality is an addiction, it said, born of doubt and a lack of faith. Into that emotional void, demons sink their ethereal claws, drawing the victim into a descending spiral of abhorrent behaviour, including rape, bestiality, incest – all abominations listed in the Bible. The only way to avoid damnation is to face up to these demons, to ask for forgiveness and cast them out. Otherwise, there can be no hope. The Bible is very clear on this. To refuse God’s help is to repudiate God: damnation will surely follow.
‘It was in Charlie’s pocket,’ he said. ‘The latest of a series of charming little booklets, warning against the dangers of masturbation, sodomy and any number of other things, from Dungeons & Dragons to rock music.’ His tone was light, but I could see that underneath, he was angry. ‘Charlie had
told me a few things,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t know the half of it. They’d been trying to cure him, as if there were a cure for being gay. And by the time he came to me, he was already half convinced that he was possessed.’
‘Possessed? As in by demons?’ I said. ‘People really believe in that stuff? I mean, people other than Mr Speight—’
‘Oh, yes, Roy. They believe in them. Speight is far from being alone. And when the minister in charge is none other than Dr Harrington, then they see demons everywhere, including in a troubled teenager trying to come to terms with being gay.’
So this was what young Harrington had been trying to tell me, I thought. It all made perfect sense now. The boy’s divided loyalties; his natural concern for his friend; his fear of speaking out in church; and Charlie Nutter’s impulse to reach out to the one adult he could really trust.
Now, little by little, the story emerged. By no means a complete account – for a start, Charlie Nutter never revealed where he had been for those twenty-four hours before arriving at Harry’s house – but enough to ensure Harry’s silence. The boy was ill and feverish from sleeping rough the previous night, and not all he said made very much sense. But one thing was certain: he was afraid. He spoke of committing suicide; begged Harry not to tell anyone where he was; described himself as unclean and scrubbed his hands until they bled, but was so incoherent when it came to explanations that Harry was left with nothing but fragments of a story; all of which led to the Church of the Omega Rose as the source of his misery.
The Church of the Omega Rose. Till then, I’d never given the place much thought – in fact, as I discovered later, I’d been walking past it for years without even knowing it was there. A nice Edwardian house on the street that Malbry folk call Millionaires’ Row, with nothing but a small brass plaque to indicate its purpose. Mr Speight spoke of sing-alongs, visiting preachers, friends’ meetings, fundraisers and families’ support groups. But according to Charlie Nutter, it was a place of darkness and dread, where public confessions, ‘cleansings’, speaking in tongues and ecstatic laying-on of hands were a weekly occurrence, and where a boy in doubt about his sexual identity was told that his soul was in danger.
‘You can’t be serious,’ I said. ‘These people are educators, for gods’ sakes.’
Harry gave a weary smile. ‘A lot of people believe it, Roy. The Church of the Omega Rose takes a very literal view on Scripture. Leviticus, chapter 18, verse 22: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. That’s what that poor kid was taught to believe, and worse: that his perfectly normal feelings were caused by demons of sexual impurity that could enter him through his own self-doubt. On the other hand,’ he went on, ‘there are some sharp words in the Gospels about teachers whose version of pastoral care leads to damaging their charges. Better for them that a millstone be tied around their necks and they be cast into the depths of the sea. But I’m guessing Dr Harrington, Mr Speight and the rest of them aren’t quite as interested in those verses.’
‘I had no idea you knew so much about the Bible,’ I said.
‘I was brought up a Catholic,’ said Harry. ‘I suppose I still am, in my way, although there are plenty of things I no longer believe. I don’t believe in the Devil. There are plenty of humans to do his work. And the God I believe in doesn’t care who you love, or how you love, but simply that you do love. That’s what I told Charlie Nutter when he came to me with this.’
It should have been me. I knew that at once. The fact that it wasn’t spoke volumes about me as a schoolmaster. I blamed myself then, as I do now, that my attention had been elsewhere; that my mistrust of Harrington had caused me to turn a blind eye to a pupil in distress. That’s what hurts most, even now. Even after what happened, I knew. It should have been me, not Harry.
By New Year’s Day, Harry went on, the news of Charlie Nutter’s disappearance had broken. Malbry was about to become the centre of a national investigation. Charlie had developed a bad cough, which needed antibiotics. Harry’s position was untenable. He needed someone to arbitrate. He knew that the longer Charlie stayed away from his family, the more damage would be done. And so he finally went to a man he felt he could trust to deal with the matter in confidence. A man with a strong moral outlook and the welfare of his pupils at heart. That man was Dr Burke, of course – the Chaplain of St Oswald’s.
7
January 1982
The Chaplain told me the story, in his little office. Even then, it was filled with orchids – pink and yellow, purple and white – heads bowed like penitents in the cool blue shadows.
‘Fellow phoned me at home,’ he said, in a slightly tremulous voice. ‘Said he needed to talk to me. Told me the Nutter lad was there. Bit of a surprise, that.’
I imagine Harry felt that the Chaplain, used to confidences, would know what to do about Charlie. And so he told him everything: Nutter’s problems at home; the situation at the church; Dr Harrington; Mr Speight; the leaflets; the ritual cleansings. Dr Burke was deeply shocked; first that the boy had run away, next, that a Master of the School had encouraged his behaviour. Result: the Chaplain went straight to the Head, and Shitter Shakeshafte, always pragmatic, called the parents straight away.
That was a bad time for everyone. Harry was furious at what he saw as a basic betrayal of trust; the Head was furious because of the threat of a scandal at St Oswald’s; the Chaplain was equally furious because of Harry’s reaction; the Satanic Mr Speight was furious because Nutter’s story had brought his church into disrepute; and Stephen Nutter, MP, was furious because, having paid good money for Charlie’s education, he hadn’t expected to deal with a lot of unnecessary parental problems.
Shakeshafte was unapologetic, however. For the sake of St Oswald’s, he said, it was best not to get any further involved. And, to do him justice, although he said some harsh things to Harry in private – and some equally harsh things to me, for lying to the Chaplain; for failing to investigate Harrington’s story and, most of all, for having known something he himself had not – he stood by both of us throughout.
Shitter Shakeshafte was old-school. He believed above all in protecting his staff. I doubt if later Headmasters would have been so loyal. Certainly, Johnny Harrington would not hesitate to throw a colleague to the wolves. But Shakeshafte just ordered Harry Clarke to lie low for a couple of weeks, and to take a little time off School, until the crisis was over.
Oh, there was some unpleasantness, mostly from the family. But Nutter, MP, was as reluctant as Shakeshafte to involve the police. Nutter, MP, had a reputation to protect, and when it became more than clear that any mud flung at St Oswald’s would also damage him and his son, he soon became co-operative. The Church of the Omega Rose had already denied involvement. Harrington Senior made a statement, describing Charlie Nutter as a ‘troubled young man’, but declined to comment on any therapies the church had offered to cure him of homosexual thoughts. When challenged by the Malbry Examiner about rumours of demon exorcisms within his congregation, he said:
‘I’m aware that some churches encourage belief in the literal existence of demons. But we prefer to take the psychological view. We encourage our worshippers to look inside themselves for the truth. The days of the Inquisition are gone. We are a progressive ministry.’
And so the scandal was contained, barring the inevitable rumours. Nutter, MP, and his entourage left Malbry early in ’82, citing the pressures of government as the reason for their departure. Charlie never came back to School, although they paid his fees in full. The story grew old; the rumours died. Little by little, St Oswald’s returned to a kind of normality.
We lost two dozen boys that year, and the next year’s intake was not good, but that was to be expected. Ballast in the wake of the storm; the old ship sailed on, regardless of the time-bomb waiting to explode below decks . . .
8
October 3rd, 2005
And here comes old October again; like a snake with its tail in its mouth. Time speeds up as
you get older, of course, and what seemed to cycle at leisurely speed now races at lethal velocity towards a dark horizon. The horse-chestnut tree in my garden is laden with fat, shiny conkers, and I pretend not to notice when the Sunnybankers jump over the wall to collect them. It’s nice to know that Health & Safety hasn’t yet reached Sunnybank Park.
At St Oswald’s, conkers are banned, courtesy of Dr Devine, as are many other things: throwing snowballs; running too fast; climbing the trees in the Lower Quad. Even more disturbing than this is his current obsession with name tags, which, he claims, if worn by staff and visitors to St Oswald’s, will ensure that intruders in the School are swiftly apprehended.
‘What kind of intruders?’ I wanted to know. (This was in the Common Room, after the Headmaster’s Briefing.)
Devine gave me one of his looks. ‘Anyone could wander in,’ he said. ‘Look what happened to President Reagan.’
‘Oh, please. Johnny Harrington hardly qualifies as an assassination risk. Besides, if a shooter did wander in, how would his wearing a visitor’s badge stop him from running amok?’
‘Well, according to Markowicz—’
Markowicz. I should have known.
‘I’m not wearing a badge,’ I said. ‘If thirty-four years at the dear old place hasn’t made me recognizable enough, then I doubt whether a badge will make any difference. I shall prowl the corridors in shadow, incognito. I shall strike fear in the hearts of the weak. Boys will look at me and say: Who was that man of mystery?’