Broken Voices

9

The next day, Saturday, 27 December, was grey and blustery, with showers of rain that attacked from unexpected angles and worked their way through the crevices of one’s clothing to the naked skin beneath.

I explained my problem about the lost cap to Mr Ratcliffe. He considered the matter gravely and gave it as his opinion that it would not be considered a beatable offence if I were caught outside the College without a school cap during the holidays. If I had any trouble, I was to refer the complainant to himself.

But I could not go out without a hat. That would not be seemly or indeed good for my health. He lent me one of his own, a battered, shapeless thing of tweed, with a trout fly fixed to the band. It was too large for my head and rested loosely on my ears. But it kept me decent, according to the standards of those days, and it kept me dry. It smelled powerfully of mothballs, with a hint of stale tobacco.

In the morning, Faraday and I went into the town. He waited outside while I tried my luck with three tobacconists in turn. The first two refused to serve me but in the third, a little shop in an alley between the High Street and Market Street, I struck lucky. The proprietor had left the establishment in the temporary charge of his elderly mother, who was very short-sighted. I put on my gruffest voice when I asked for ten Woodbine cigarettes — unlike Faraday’s, my voice had settled down to a sort of croak after the ups and downs of the previous year. That and Mr Ratcliffe’s hat seemed to allay any suspicions the woman might have had.

Once outside, I showed Faraday my booty. He reacted with gratifying horror.

‘If you’re caught, they’ll chuck you out,’ he whispered.

‘What does it matter?’ I said grandly. ‘I don’t care.’

He glanced at me under the brim of his cap and I felt reproved by the misery in his eyes. By buying cigarettes I was merely toying with the risk of expulsion. It was improbable I would be caught smoking and doubly improbable that I would be expelled for doing it, particularly in the school holidays. But Faraday almost certainly faced expulsion already: and if by any chance he was allowed to stay at school, the alternative he faced was almost worse — years of persecution. In either case I pictured the shame of the stolen postal order pursuing him through his blighted adult life until his miserable death.

In the meadows between the Cathedral and the river, there stood a steep, heavily wooded hill, which had once formed part of a little castle made of earth and wood. It was as safe as anywhere to smoke. I scrambled up it, with Faraday trailing after me because he had nothing better to do and my company was better than his own.

At the top was a clearing of rough grass with a rotting summerhouse that stank of foxes. I stood on the remains of the little verandah in front of it and smoked two Woodbines in swift succession. I tried my best to give the impression that I was enjoying an exquisite pleasure but in truth the cigarettes made me feel rather sick.

Meanwhile Faraday moved restlessly about the clearing. As I was smoking the second cigarette, he came back to my side.

‘I say,’ he said. ‘You know the anthem? The one that was lost?’

I squinted through the smoke at him. ‘Yes.’

‘It would be marvellous if it was found after all this time. Wouldn’t it?’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose so. For choirboys and chaps like that.’

‘Just because it hasn’t been found, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.’

My mind filled with a picture of all those lost notes, black blobs with little tails and other attachments, floating in the air like dead leaves in a strong breeze.

‘But where?’ I said. ‘I’m sure they looked everywhere.’

‘I think it’s in the tower,’ Faraday said. ‘I mean, that’s where he was when he fell. He had his pen and ink with him, remember.’

‘Don’t be an ass. They must have searched especially hard up there.’

‘But perhaps they didn’t look hard enough. Look — just suppose we looked for it, and we found it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? They’d make an awfully big fuss. I shouldn’t wonder if they put it in the newspapers. And we’d be — well, we’d be sort of heroes, wouldn’t we?’

He stared expectantly at me, his mouth open, the rabbit teeth displayed.

My imagination was beginning to stir, even though the idea had come from Faraday. It would make a huge stir at school if we found it. I imagined the news filtering through to my aunt, miraculously restored to full health for the purpose, and even to my parents in India. I imagined their delight, their pride.

‘What do you think?’ he said.

‘But we can’t get up there.’

‘I bet we could find a way. I’ve a plan.’

I was careful to preserve my dignity by not showing too much enthusiasm. ‘There’d be a beastly stink if they catch us.’

‘Not if we find it. They wouldn’t mind what we’d done. They’d wipe the slate clean.’

I understood at last what Faraday meant, what his motive was. He thought that the lost anthem was his chance of salvation, perhaps his only one. If he found it, it would neutralize the disgrace of the postal order; it would make up for his broken voice and for no longer being head of the choir. The school would come back next term to find him a hero. And I would be a hero, too.

If he found it.

I dropped the cigarette butt and ground it into the wet earth with my heel. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘At least it’ll give us something to do.’

In my heart of hearts, I didn’t believe that Faraday would do anything. It’s easy enough to come up with these schemes but quite another to put them into practice.

He didn’t mention the idea again for an hour or two. We went to the Veals’ for lunch, our midday dinner. Afterwards I walked up to Angel Farm, followed by the reluctant Faraday, in case Mr Witney had decided on a second day of ratting. But the farmyard was deserted apart from a dog that barked furiously at us and made savage little runs towards us to the limit of its chain.

‘Let’s go to the Cathedral,’ he suggested.

I didn’t say anything but we fell into step together and, as we had done the day before, walked through the long street leading from the green to the west door.

It was much earlier in the afternoon than it had been on our last visit. The Cathedral, even on this grey day, seemed brighter and more welcoming. I took this as a good omen. We stood in the very centre of the space beneath the west tower and looked up at the painted ceiling.

More than a hundred feet high, Mr Ratcliffe had said.

‘You can’t see the trapdoor,’ Faraday said, clearly disappointed.

I wondered what a fall from that height would do to a man. Would it compress him, ram his legs into his body and his head into his shoulders?

‘What’s the painting of?’ I said.

Faraday stared upwards. ‘I don’t know. It looks like angels playing harps and things.’

He went over to a short flight of steps in the thickness of the wall, almost invisible because it was in the shadow of one of the great columns that supported the tower. At the top of the steps was a heavy door. This was where the stairs to the tower began.

I glanced over my shoulder. No one was in sight. I tried the door. It was locked. We stood and looked at it. The door was made of old, scarred oak with great iron hinges. The lock looked more modern, judging by the size of the keyhole, and smaller than I would have expected.

There was a clattering behind us as a small party of visitors burst through the west door. One of them had a guide book in hand and was acting as tour leader.

None of them gave us a second glance but we scurried away like a pair of startled animals.