Collected Stories

A School Story

Every night after lights-out in the dormitory there was a ceremonial storytelling. One by one we contributed our pieces, holding the stage from the gloom for five or six minutes apiece. Many offerings were of a trite enough order: the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman on a series of desert islands, and what the drunk said to the Pope. But often the stories were real: reminiscences from a short past, snippets of overheard conversation, descriptions of the naked female body in unguarded moments. Only Markham deliberately repeated himself, telling us again and again, and by unanimous demand, about the death of his mother. On a night when no one had much to say, Markham would invariably be called upon; and none of us ever expected to hear anything new. We were satisfied that it was so; because Markham told his story well and it was, to us, a fascinating one.

‘It was like this, you see. One Sunday morning my father and I were walking up Tavistock Hill and I asked him to tell me about my mother. It was a good sunny morning in early May and my father looked up at the sky and started on about how beautiful she’d been. So then, when I could get a word in, I asked him about how she’d died and that. Well, he took an extra breath or two and said to prepare myself. I assured him I was well prepared, and then he told me about how they had been staying with these friends in Florence and how they had set out to the hills to do some shooting. They rode out in a great Italian shooting-brake and soon they were slaying the birds like nobody’s business. But in the middle of everything there was this accident and my mother was lying in a pool of blood and all the Italians were throwing up their hands and saying “Blessed Mother of Jesus, what a terrible thing!” I said: “Did her gun go off by accident? Was she not carrying it correctly or what?” And my father said it wasn’t like that at all, it was his gun that went off by accident and what a shocking thing it was to be the instrument of one’s wife’s slaughter. Well, sharp as a knife I could see the lie in his face and I said to myself; “Accident, forsooth! Murder more like.” Or, anyway, words to that effect. You’ll understand with a discovery like that fresh on the mind one is in an emotional tizzy and apt to forget the exact order of thinking. Why was I certain? I’ll tell you, boys, why I was certain: because within a six-month the father had married the dead mother’s sister. My stepmother to this day. And I’ll tell you another thing: I have plans laid to wipe out those two with a couple of swoops of a butcher’s knife. Am I not, when all’s said and done, a veritable pocket Hamlet? And isn’t it right that I should dream at night of the sharpening of the knife?’

Markham had a long, rather serious face; deeply set, very blue eyes; and smooth fair hair the colour of yellow terracotta. People liked him, but nobody knew him very well. His stories about his family and the threats they exposed were taken only half seriously; and when he talked in this way he seemed to be speaking outside his role. Markham was too quiet, too pleasant, too attractive to be mixed up in this way. There was something wrong, not so much with what he said – which we quite understood, whether we thought of it as fact or not – as with Markham’s saying it. That at least is how it appears in retrospect, to me and to the others with whom I have since discussed it. Then, we scarcely analyzed our feelings; after all, we were only fifteen at the time of the Markham affair.

‘I’ve got some bread from Dining Hall,’ Williams said. ‘Let’s toast it in the boilerhouse.’ He drew from beneath his jacket four rounds of hard-looking bread and a couple of pieces of straightened wire. His small red-rimmed eyes darted about my face as though seeking some minute, mislaid article. He held out a piece of wire and I took it from him, already recognizing its utter uselessness for the task in hand. One had to open the top of the boiler and toast from above, guiding the bread far into the bowels of the ironwork until it was poised neatly above the glowing coke. It was a business of expertise, and a single length of wire in place of an expanding toasting fork indicated rudimentary disaster.

It was mid-afternoon and, recovering from a cold, I was ‘off games’. Williams, who suffered from asthma, was rarely seen on the games field. He disliked any form of physical exercise and he used his disability as an excuse to spend solitary afternoons hanging around the classrooms or enjoying a read and a smoke in the lavatories. He was despised for his laziness, his unprepossessing appearance, and his passion for deception. I said I would join him on his expedition to the boilerhouse.

‘I’ve snitched some jam,’ he said, ‘and a pat or two of butter.’

We walked in silence, Williams occasionally glancing over his shoulder in his customary furtive manner. In the boilerhouse he laid the bread on the seat of the boilerman’s chair and extracted the jam and butter from the depths of his clothes. They were separately wrapped in two sheets of paper torn from an exercise book. The jam was raspberry and contact with the paper had caused the ruled lines to run. Fearing the effects of this, I said at once that as far as I was concerned the addition of butter was quite sufficient.

The toast was badly burnt and tasted of smoke. Williams ate his ravenously, wiping his fingers on his trouser pockets. I nibbled at mine and eventually threw it into the corner. At this Williams expostulated, picked up the discarded piece, wiped it and smeared on the remains of the jam. He made a crunching noise as he ate, and explained that his inordinate appetite was due to the presence of worms in his body.

There was a footfall on the steps outside and a moment later a figure appeared, sharply silhouetted in the doorway. We could not at first establish its identity, and Williams, speaking loudly, said to me: ‘It has been well worth while. The knowledge we have gained of our school’s heating system will stand us in good stead. It is well to put a use to one’s time in this way.’ The figure advanced, and Williams, seeing that it was not the headmaster, sniggered. ‘It’s only bloody Markham,’ he said. ‘I thought it was Bodger at least.’

‘I have come to smoke,’ Markham announced, offering each of us a small, thin cigar.

‘When I am fully grown and equipped for life,’ Williams said, ‘I intend to pursue a legal career. As well, I shall smoke only the most expensive cigars. One can well afford such a policy if one makes a success of the law.’

Markham and I, concerned with the lighting of our tobacco, heard this pronouncement in silence.

‘It may be,’ Williams went on, ‘that I shall learn in time to roll the leaves together myself. The female thigh, I understand, is just the instrument for such a chore.’

‘Williams will make an excellent lawyer,’ Markham remarked.

‘Certainly he will be splendid beneath his wig,’ I said.

‘And what,’ Williams asked, ‘do you intend to do with your years, Markham?’

‘Oh, they are well numbered. I shall hang quite soon for the slaughter of my father.’

‘Would you not wait a while that I might defend you?’

‘It is not an action you could readily defend surely? I am guilty already. I would prefer not to die, but I would not wish to dissociate myself from my crime.’

Williams, puffing hard and with the cigar clamped in the centre of his teeth, said:

‘Markham’s a bloody madman, eh?’

‘Damn it, isn’t it correct that I should be hatching schemes of vengeance? Wasn’t it my own mother? Would you do less, Mr Williams? Answer me now, would you do less?’

‘Ah Markham, I wouldn’t go about with the noose around my neck before it was time for it. I’d hold my peace on that account.’

‘Puny, Williams, puny.’

‘But wise, none the less.’ He kicked a piece of coke across the floor, following it with his glance. He said: ‘Anyway, Markham will never do it. Markham is all talk.’

‘This is a good cigar,’ Markham said. ‘May we enjoy many another.’

‘Yes,’ said Williams agreeably enough. ‘A fine drag.’

We smoked in silence. Looking back on it, it seems certain that it all began that afternoon in the boilerhouse. Had I not met Williams on the way to his toasting session, had Markham not later shared his cigars with us, how different the course of events might have been. My friendship with Markham might never have come about; Williams might never have been transformed from a cunning nonentity into a figure of mystery and power; and Markham, somehow, might have dodged the snare he had already set for himself.

Becoming friends with Markham was an odd thing, he being so silent, so unforthcoming on any subject except the death of his mother. Yet he was sunny rather than sullen; thoughtful rather than brooding. We walked together on the hills behind the school, often without exchanging more than a dozen words. In spite of this our friendship grew. I discovered that Markham’s father and stepmother were now in Kenya. Markham saw them only once a year, during the summer holidays; he spent Easter and Christmas with a grandmother on the south coast.

The other odd aspect of this new relationship between Markham and me was the attitude of Williams. He hung around us. Often, uninvited, he accompanied us on our walks. He took to sidling up to us and whispering: ‘Markham will never do it. Markham’s just a madman, eh?’ Markham rarely replied. He stared at Williams with a puzzled expression and smiled.

When he came on walks with us Williams would ask Markham to tell us about the shooting accident in Florence, and this of course Markham never tired of doing. He didn’t seem to resent Williams. I think he was more generous than the rest of us about people like Williams. Certainly he was more generous than I was. Frankly, Williams used to set my teeth on edge. I found him alone one day and asked him bluntly what he was up to. He sniffed at me and asked me what I meant.

‘Why do you follow Markham and me around?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you leave Markham alone?’

Williams laughed. ‘Markham’s an interesting bird.’

‘What are you up to, Williams?’

But he wouldn’t tell me. He said: ‘I’m an unhealthy personage.’ He laughed again and walked away.

This exchange had no effect on Williams. He still haunted our movements, chattering of his future in the legal world or retailing the fruits of an hour’s eavesdropping. When we were alone together Markham no longer repeated his famous story or made any allusion to this particular aspect of life. I came to realize that although he truly hated his father it had become a joke with him to talk about it. I was the first close friend Markham had known, and he was quite unused to the communication that such a relationship involved. It was only very gradually that new topics of conversation developed between us.

But there was always Williams, devotedly determined, it seemed, to wrap Markham and his story closer and closer together. We formed, I suppose, an odd kind of triangle.

At the beginning of the autumn term the headmaster, Bodger, addressed us at length about this and that, announcing the names of the new prefects and supplying us with fresh items of school routine. When he had finished this part of his peroration he paused for a suitable moment and then he said:

‘There are times, boys, in the lives of us all when we must display the ultimate bravery. When we must face the slings and arrows with a fortitude we may perhaps have never had call to employ before. Such a fearful moment has come to one of our number. I would ask you to show him kindness and understanding. I would ask you this term to help him on his way; to make that way as easy as you may. For us it is a test as it is for him. A test of our humanity. A test of our Christian witness. It is with the greatest grief, boys, that I must report to you the sudden and violent death of Ian Markham’s father and stepmother.’

Markham had not yet returned. During the fortnight of his absence speculation and rumour ran high. Neither Bodger nor his henchmen seemed to know about the threats he had been wont to issue. Only we who were in their care questioned the accuracy of the facts as they had been presented to us: that a Mau Mau marauder armed with a heavy knife had run berserk through the Markham farm in Kenya. Was not the coincidence too great? Was it not more likely that Markham had finally implemented his words with action?

‘Markham’s a madman, eh?’ Williams said to me.

When he did return, Markham was changed. He no longer smiled. Waiting expectantly in the dormitory for a new and gory story, his companions received only silence from Markham’s bed. He spoke no more of his mother; and when anyone sympathized with him on his more recent loss he seemed not to know what was being spoken of. He faded into the background and became quite unremarkable. Pointedly rejecting my companionship, he ended our brief friendship. Instead, he and Williams became inseparable.

It was, I remember, a particularly beautiful autumn. Red, dead leaves gleamed all day in the soft sunlight. On warm afternoons I walked alone through the gorse-covered hills. I did not make friends easily; and I missed the company of Markham.

As the weeks passed it became clear the murder of Markham’s parents by the Mau Mau was now generally accepted. It might be thought that against a background of Markham’s stories and avowed intentions a certain fear would have developed; an uneasiness about sharing one’s daily existence with such a character. It was not so. Markham seemed almost dead himself; he was certainly not a figure to inspire terror. The more one noticed him the more unlikely it appeared that he could possibly have had any hand in the events in Kenya, although he had been in the house at the time and had himself escaped undamaged.

I thought that only I must have been aware of the ominous nature of Markham’s association with Williams. Williams, I knew, was up to no good. He whispered constantly to Markham, grinning slyly, his small eyes drilling into Markham’s face. I didn’t like it and I didn’t know what to do.

One afternoon I walked into the town with a boy called Block. We went to a café with the intention of passing an hour over tea and cakes and, if the coast seemed clear, a surreptitious smoke.

‘This is an uncivilized place,’ Block remarked as we sat down. ‘I cannot imagine why we came here.’

‘There is nowhere else.’

‘It is at least too revolting for the Bodger or any of his band. Look, there’s our dreaded Williams. With Markham.’

They were sitting at a table in an alcove. Williams, talking as usual, was fiddling with the spots on his face. As I watched him, he picked a brightly coloured cake from the plate between them. It looked an uninviting article, indeed scarcely edible. He nibbled at one corner and replaced it on the plate.

‘Whatever does Markham see in him?’ Block asked.

I shook my head. Block was a simple person, but when he next spoke he revealed a depth I had not before had evidence of. He cocked his head to one side and said: ‘Williams hates Markham. You can see it easily enough. And I believe Markham’s terrified of him. You used to know Markham rather well. D’you know why?’

Again I shook my head. But there was no doubt about it, Block was quite right.

The nub of the relationship was William’s hatred. It was as though hatred of some kind was essential to Markham; as though, since he had no father to hate now, he was feeding on this unexplained hatred of himself. It all seemed a bit crazy, but I felt that something of the kind must be true.

‘I feel I should do something about it all,’ I said. ‘Williams is a horribly untrustworthy fellow. God knows what his intentions are.’

Did Williams know something we others were ignorant of? Something of the double death in Kenya?

‘What can you do?’ Block said, lighting the butt of a cigarette.

‘I wonder if I should talk to Pinshow?’

Block laughed. Pinshow was a fat, middle-aged master who welcomed the personal problems of his pupils. He was also a bit of an intellectual. It was enough to tell Mr Pinshow that one had an ambition to become a writer or an actor to ensure endless mugs of black coffee in Mr Pinshow’s room.

‘I often wonder if we don’t underestimate Pinshow,’ I said. ‘There’s lots of goodwill in the man. And good ideas quite often originate in unexpected quarters. He just might be able to suggest something.’

‘Perhaps. You know more about Markham than I do. I mean, you probably know more about what the matter is. He doesn’t seem much good at anything any more, does he?’

I looked across the room at his sad, lost-looking face. ‘No, I’m afraid he doesn’t.’

Block suddenly began to laugh. ‘Have you heard Butler’s one about the sick budgerigar?’

I said I didn’t think I had, and he leaned forward and told me. Listening to this obscene account of invalid bird-life, I made up my mind to see Pinshow as soon as possible.

The evening light faded and Mr Pinshow continued to talk. I tried in the gloom to take some biscuits without his observing my action. He pushed the box closer to me, oblivious, or so I hoped, of my deceit. ‘Out of the slimy mud of words,’ said Mr Pinshow, ‘out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions, approximate thoughts and feelings… there spring the perfect order of speech and the beauty of incantation.’ Mr Pinshow often said this. I think it may have been his favourite quotation. I drained my coffee mug, filling my mouth with bitter sediment as I did so.

I said: ‘There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love.’

‘Ah, Wilder.’ Mr Pinshow drew a large coloured handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blew his nose.

‘The only survival,’ I added, ‘the only meaning.’

Mr Pinshow replaced his handkerchief. He scratched a match along the side of its box and held the flame to his pipe. ‘Love’ he said, puffing, ‘or love? One sort or the other sort?’

‘The other sort, sir?’

‘You question such a division? Good. Good.’

I said: ‘I wanted to speak to you, sir.’

‘Quite right. Fire away, then.’

‘In confidence, sir, I think Williams is a bad influence on Markham.’

‘Ah.’

‘I think Markham may be very upset about his parents’ death, sir. Williams is the last person…’

‘Come now, in what way a bad influence? Speak freely, my friend. We must straightway establish the facts of the case.’

I knew then that the whole thing was going to be useless. It had been a mistake to come to Pinshow. I could not reveal to him the evidence on which my fears were based. I said nothing, hoping he would not press me.

‘I see,’ he said.

‘Perhaps I am making a mountain out of a molehill, sir.’

Mr Pinshow, however, did not think so at all. ‘This is a serious business,’ he said. ‘Though it is unusual in these matters, I am glad you came to me.’

Clearly, I had given the man a completely false impression. I attempted to rectify this, but Mr Pinshow waved me to silence.

‘Say no more, my friend. Leave the matter with me. You can rely on me to speak with discretion in the right directions.’

‘Sir, I hope I have not misled you.’

‘No, no, no.’

‘It is not a serious thing, sir. It is just that Markham was once a friend of mine and I am sure that now he…’

Mr Pinshow held up his hand. He smiled. ‘You are a good fellow. Do not despair. All will be well.’

God knows, I thought, what damage I have done.

‘Mind your own bloody business,’ Williams muttered to me. ‘Any more of this kind of stuff to Pinshow and I’ll have you for slander. Don’t you know that man’s a menace?’

‘Go to hell, Williams.’ And Williams, seeming a fit candidate for such a destination, shuffled angrily away.

After that, I decided to forget about Markham and Williams. After all, it had nothing to do with me; and in any case I appeared to have no option. I settled down to concentrating a little harder on my work and then, when I really had forgotten all about this strange alliance, I was summoned from class one day by the headmaster.

He stood by the window of his study, a terrible, sickly figure of immense height. He remained with his back to me when I entered the room and spoke to me throughout the interview from this position. ‘You will tell me what you know about Markham and the boy Williams,’ he said. ‘Do not lie, boy. I know a lie. I feel a lie on its utterance. Likewise, do not exaggerate. You will repeat to me simply and honestly all that is apposite. Unburden yourself, boy, that you may leave the room with your duty well done.’

I did not intend to lie. To conceal three-quarters of the story was not to lie. I said: ‘The whole truth, sir, is that…’ I paused not knowing how to go on. The headmaster said:

‘Well, boy, let us have haste with the whole truth.’

‘I can tell you nothing, sir.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Yes, sir. I know nothing of Markham and Williams.’

‘They are boys in this school. You know that, I presume? You have associated with them. You have spoken to Mr Pinshow of these boys. If their relationship is an illicit one I wish to know it. You will achieve little by reticence.’

‘There is nothing illicit, sir, in their friendship. I spoke to Mr Pinshow merely because I felt Williams to be the wrong sort of friend for Markham at this particular time.’

‘That is a presumptuous decision for you to make, boy.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why, then, did you so perversely make it?’

‘I like Markham, sir.’

‘Why, then, did you not see to it that his days were made easier by persuading him personally against an ill influence?’

‘Markham no longer wished for my companionship, sir.’

‘You had harmed him in some manner?’

‘No, sir. At least not that I know of.’

‘Yes or no, boy? Do not leave yourself a cowardly loophole.’

‘No, sir. I had not harmed him.’

‘Well then, why did he not wish to converse with you?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

‘You do not know. It is unnecessary to be afraid as well.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You see, boy, that you have placed me in an intolerable position with your wild irresponsibilities? I am the fount of authority in this school. You have made me uneasy in my mind. You have forced me to pursue a course I see no good reason for pursuing. Yet because there may be one tittle of reality in your guarded suspicions I must act as I do not wish to act. Have you ever placed yourself in a headmaster’s shoes?’

‘No, sir.’

‘No, sir. I had sensed as much. They are shoes that pinch, boy. It is well to remember that.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Walk forward to my desk, boy, and press the bell you see there. We will order this affair one way or the other.’

Markham and Williams were summoned. When they entered, the headmaster turned from the window and faced us. He said to them:

‘Your friendship is in dispute. Your accuser stands beside you. Do not lie, boys. I know a lie. I can feel a lie on its utterance. Have you reason for shame?’

Williams, whose eyes were fastened on the legs of the headmaster’s desk, shook his head. Markham replied that he had no cause to be ashamed.

‘On what then is your relationship based? Have you like interests? Of what do you speak together?’

‘Of many things, sir,’ Williams said. ‘Politics and affairs of state. Of our ambitions, sir. And our academic progress as the term passes.’

‘We talk of one subject only, sir,’ Markham said. ‘The death of my father and stepmother.’

‘Yet you, boy,’ the headmaster said to Williams, ‘would claim a wider conversational field. The air is blackened with the lie. Which boy are we to believe?’

‘Markham is ill, sir. He is not at all himself. I give him what help I can. He does not recall the full extent of our conversation.’

‘We speak of one subject,’ Markham repeated.

‘Why, boy, do you speak of this subject to the exclusion of all others?’

‘Because I killed my father, sir. And my stepmother too.’

‘Markham is ill, sir. He…’

‘Leave the room, you boys. Markham, you shall remain.’

Neither Williams nor I spoke as we walked away from the headmaster’s door. Then, as our ways were about to divide, I said:

‘You know he didn’t. You know it is not true.’

Williams did not look at me. He said: That’s right. Why didn’t you tell Bodger that?’

‘You’ve made him believe he did it, Williams.’

‘Markham’s all talk. Markham’s a madman, eh?’

‘You’re an evil bastard, Williams.’

‘That’s right. I’m an unhealthy personage.’

He went on his way and I stood where he had left me, looking back at the closed door of the headmaster’s study. The little red light which indicated that for no reason whatsoever should the headmaster be disturbed gleamed above it. Within, I guessed that the curtains were by now closely drawn, since to do so was the headmaster’s practice on all grave occasions.

Suddenly I had the absurd notion of returning to this darkened room and demanding to be heard, since now I was free to speak. I felt for the moment that I could put his case more clearly, more satisfactorily than Markham himself. I felt that I knew everything: the horror of the thought that had leapt in Markham’s mind when first his father told him of the accident in Florence; the game he had made of it, and the later fears that Williams had insidiously played upon. But as I paused in doubt I heard the urgent chiming of a bell, and, like the object of some remote control, I answered the familiar summons.

That same evening Markham was driven away. He was seen briefly in the headmaster’s hall, standing about in his overcoat, seeming much as usual.

‘They’ve sent him up to Derbyshire,’ said Mr Pinshow when later I attempted to elicit information. ‘Poor lad; so healthy in the body, too.’ He would say no more, but I knew what he was thinking; and often since I have thought of Markham, still healthy in his body, growing up and getting older in the place they had found for him in Derbyshire. I have thought of Williams too, similarly growing older though in other circumstances, marrying perhaps and begetting children, and becoming in the end the man he had said he would one day be.