Gentlemen and Players

1

Monday, 27th September

In spite of the Head’s best efforts, Fallow made the papers. Not the News of the World—that would have been too much to expect—but our own Examiner, which is almost as good. The traditional rift between school and town is such that bad news from St. Oswald’s travels fast, and is received for the most part with a fierce and unholy glee. The ensuing piece was both triumphant and vitriolic, simultaneously portraying Fallow as a long-term employee of the school, dismissed (summarily and without Union representation) for a crime as yet unproved and, at the same time, as a likeable rogue who for years had been getting his own back on a system comprising Hooray Henrys, faceless bureaucrats, and out-of-touch academics.

It has become a David and Goliath situation, with Fallow as a symbol of the working classes fighting the monstrous machines of wealth and privilege. The writer of the piece, who signs his name simply as Mole, also manages to convey the impression that St. Oswald’s is filled with similar scams and small corruptions, that the teaching is hopelessly out-of-date, that smoking (and possibly drug abuse) is rife, and that the buildings themselves are so badly in need of repair that a serious accident is almost inevitable. An editorial, entitled “Private Schools—Should They Be Scrapped?” flanks the piece, and readers are invited to send in their own thoughts and grievances against St. Oswald’s and the Old Boy network that protects it.

I’m rather pleased with it. They printed it almost unedited, and I have promised to keep them informed of any further developments. In my e-mail I hinted that I was a source close to the school—an Old Boy, a pupil, a governor, perhaps even a member of staff—keeping the details fluid (I may have to change them later).

I used one of my secondary e-mail addresses—Mole@hotmail.com, to foil any attempt to discover my identity. Not that anyone at the Examiner is likely to try—they’re more accustomed to dog shows and local politics than investigative journalism—but you never know where a story like this is going to end. I don’t entirely know myself; which is, I suppose, what makes it fun.

It was raining when I arrived at school this morning. Traffic was slower than usual, and I had to make an effort to control my annoyance as I inched through town. One of the things that makes the locals resent St. Oswald’s is the traffic it generates at rush hour; the hundreds of clean, shiny Jags and sensible Volvos and four-wheel drives and people carriers that line the roads every morning with their cargo of clean, shiny boys in blazers and caps.

Some take the car even when their home is less than a mile away. God forbid that the clean, shiny boy should have to jump puddles or breathe pollutants or (worse still) experience contamination by the dull, grubby pupils of the nearby Sunnybank Park; the loudmouthed, loose-limbed boys with their nylon jackets and scuffed trainers; the yawping girls in their short skirts and dyed hair. When I was their age I walked to school; I wore those cheap shoes and grubby socks; and sometimes as I drive to work in my rented car I can still feel the rage mounting in me, the terrible rage against who I was and who I longed to be.

I remember a time, late that summer. Leon was bored; school was out, and we were hanging around the public playground (I remember the roundabout, its paint worn clean through to the metal by generations of young hands), smoking Camels (Leon smoked, so I did too), and watching the Sunnybankers go by.

“Barbarians. Rabble. Proles.” His fingers were long and slender, deeply stained with ink and nicotine. On the path, a little knot of Sunnybankers approaching, dragging their schoolbags, shouting, dusty-footed in the hot afternoon. No threat to us, though there were times when we’d had to run, pursued by a gang of Sunnybankers.

Once, when I wasn’t there, they’d cornered Leon, down by the bins at the back of the school, and given him a kicking. I hated them all the more for that; even more than Leon did—they were my people, after all. But these were just girls—four of them together and a straggler from my own year—raucous, gum-chewing girls, skirts hiked up blotchy legs, giggling and screaming as they ran down the path.

The straggler, I saw, was Peggy Johnsen, the fat girl from Mr. Bray’s Games class, and I turned away instinctively, but not before Leon had caught my eye and winked.

“Well?”

I knew that look. I recognized it from our forays into town; our record shop thefts; our small acts of rebellion. Leon’s gaze brimmed with mischief; his bright eyes pinned Peggy as she half ran to keep up.

“Well what?”

The other four were far ahead. Peggy, with her sweaty face and anxious look, was suddenly alone. “Oh no,” I said. The truth was I had nothing against Peggy; a slow, harmless girl only a step removed from mental deficiency. I even pitied her a little.

Leon gave me a scornful look. “What is she, Pinchbeck, your girlfriend?” he said. “Come on!” And he was off at a run, arcing across the playground with an exuberant whoop. I followed him; I told myself there was nothing else I could have done.

We snatched her bags—Leon took her games kit in its Woolworth’s carrier, I grabbed her canvas satchel with the little hearts drawn on in Tipp-Ex. Then we ran, far too fast for Peggy to follow, leaving her squalling in our dust. I’d simply wanted to get away before she recognized me; but my momentum had sent me crashing against her, knocking her to the ground.

Leon had laughed at that, and I did too, viciously, knowing that in another life it could have been me sitting there on the path, it could have been me yelling “Ah, come on, you buggers, you lousy bastards” through my tears as my gym shoes, tied by the laces, were flung into the highest branches of an old tree and my books fluttered their pages like confetti on the warm summer air.

I’m sorry, Peggy. I nearly meant it too. She wasn’t the worst of them, not by a long way. But she was there, and she was disgusting—with her greasy hair and red angry face, she could almost have been my father’s child. And so I stomped her books; emptied her bags; scattered her PE kit (I can still see those navy blue knickers, baggy as my fabled Thunderpants) into the yellow dust.

“Ozzie bastards!”

Survival of the fittest, I replied silently, feeling angry for her, angry for myself, but fiercely elated, as if I’d passed a test; as if by so doing I had narrowed the gap still more between myself and St. Oswald’s, between who I was and who I meant to be.

“Bastards.”

The lights were green, but the queue ahead was too long to allow me to pass. A couple of boys saw the opportunity to cross—I recognized McNair, one of Straitley’s favorites, Jackson, the diminutive bully from the same form, and the sidling, crablike gait of Anderton-Pullitt—and just at that moment the traffic ahead of me began to move.

Jackson crossed at a run. So did McNair. There was a space of fifty yards ahead of me, into which, if I was quick, I could pass. Otherwise the lights would change again and I would have to stand at the junction for another five minutes as the interminable traffic crawled by. But Anderton-Pullitt did not run. A heavy boy, already middle-aged at thirteen, he crossed in leisurely fashion, not looking at me even when I honked my horn, as if by ignoring me he might will me out of existence. Briefcase in one hand, lunch box in the other, walking fastidiously around the puddle in the middle of the road so that by the time he was out of my way, the lights had changed and I was forced to wait.

Trivial, I know. But there’s an arrogance to it, a lazy contempt which is pure St. Oswald’s. I wondered what he would have done if I had simply driven at him—or over him, in fact. Would he have run? Or would he have stayed put, confident, stupid, mouthing to the last: You wouldn’t—you couldn’t—!

Unfortunately, there was no question of my running down Anderton-Pullitt. For a start, I need the car, and the rental company might get suspicious if I brought it back with a ruined front end. Still, there are plenty of other means, I thought, and I owed myself a little celebration. I smiled as I waited at the frozen lights, and turned the radio on.

I sat in room fifty-nine for the first half-hour of lunchtime. Thanks to Bob Strange, Straitley was out, either lurking in that Book Room of his, or patrolling the corridors on duty. The room was filled with boys. Some did their homework; some played chess or talked, occasionally chugging from cans of fizzy drink or eating crisps.

All teachers hate rainy days; there is nowhere for the pupils to go but indoors, and they have to be supervised; it is muddy, and accidents happen; it is crowded and noisy; squabbles turn into fights. I intervened in one myself, between Jackson and Brasenose (a soft, fat boy who has not yet learned the trick of making his size work for him), supervised the tidying of the room, pointed out a spelling mistake in Tayler’s homework, accepted a Polo mint from Pink and a peanut from Knight, chatted for a few minutes to the boys eating their packed lunches on the back row, then, my task accomplished, I made once again for the Quiet Room, to await developments over a cup of murky tea.

I do not, of course, have a form. None of the new staff has. It gives us free time and a broader perspective; I can watch from behind the lines, and I know the moments of weakness; the dangerous times; the unsupervised sections of the school; the vital minutes—the seconds—during which, if disaster were to strike, the giant’s underbelly would be at its most exposed.

The after-lunch bell is one of these. Afternoon registration has not yet begun, although at this point, lunchtime is officially over. In theory, it is a five-minute warning, a changeover time during which staff still sitting in the Common Room make a move toward their classrooms, and staff members on lunchtime duties have a few minutes to collect their belongings (and maybe glance at a newspaper) before registration.

In effect, however, it is a five-minute window of vulnerability in an otherwise smooth-running operation. No one is on duty; many staff—and sometimes pupils—are still moving from one place to another. Little surprise, then, that most mishaps occur at such a time; scuffles; thefts; petty vandalism; random pieces of misbehavior perpetrated in transit and under cover of the surge of activity that precedes the return to afternoon lessons. This is why it was five minutes before anyone really noticed that Anderton-Pullitt had collapsed.

It might have been less if he had been popular. But he was not: sitting slightly away from the others, eating his sandwiches (Marmite and cream cheese on wheat-free bread, always the same) with slow, laborious bites, he looked more like a tortoise than a thirteen-year-old boy. There is one of his kind in every year; precocious, bespectacled, hypochondriac, shunned even beyond bullying, he seems impervious to insults or rejection; cultivates an old man’s pedantic speech, which gives him a reputation for cleverness; is polite to teachers, which makes him a favorite.

Straitley finds him amusing—but then he would; as a boy, he was probably just the same. I find him annoying; in Straitley’s absence he follows me around when I’m on duty in the yard and subjects me to ponderous lectures on his various enthusiasms (science fiction, computers, First World War aircraft) and his ailments real and imagined (asthma, food intolerances, agoraphobia, allergies, anxiety, warts).

As I sat now in the Quiet Room, I amused myself in trying to determine from the sounds that came from above my head, whether or not Anderton-Pullitt had a genuine ailment.

No one else noticed; no one else was listening. Robbie Roach, who was free next period and has no form either (too many extracurricular commitments), was rootling through his locker. I noticed a pack of French cigarettes in there (a present from Fallow), which he quickly hid behind a pile of books. Isabelle Tapi, who teaches part-time and therefore has no form either, was drinking from a bottle of Evian water and reading a paperback.

I heard the five-minute bell followed by a hubbub; the unchained melody of unsupervised boys; the sound of something (a chair?) falling over. Then, raised voices—Jackson and Brasenose resuming their fight—another chair falling, then silence. I assumed Straitley had come in. Sure enough, there came the sound of his voice—a subdued murmur from the boys, then the domestic cadences of registration, familiar as those of the football scores on Saturday afternoons.

—Adamczyk?

Sir.

—Almond?

Sir.

—Allen-Jones?

Yes, sir.

—Anderton-Pullitt?

Beat.

—Anderton-Pullitt?

2

St. Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys

Wednesday, 29th September

Still no news from the Anderton-Pullitts. I take this as a good sign—I’m told that in extreme cases the reaction can prove fatal within seconds—but even so, the thought that one of my boys might have died—actually died—in my room, under my supervision—makes my heart stutter and my palms sweat.

In all my years of teaching, I have known three of my boys die. Their faces look out at me every day from the class photographs along the Middle Corridor: Hewitt, who died of meningitis in the Christmas holidays of 1972; and Constable, 1986, run over by a car in his own street as he ran to retrieve a lost football; and of course, Mitchell, 1989—Mitchell, whose case has never ceased to trouble me. All outside of school hours; and yet in every instance (but especially in his) I feel to blame, as if I should have been watching out for them.

Then there are the Old Boys. Jamestone, cancer at thirty-two; Deakin, brain tumor; Stanley, car crash; Poulson, killed himself, no one knows why, two years ago, leaving a wife and an eight-year-old Down syndrome daughter. Still my boys, all of them, and still I feel an emptiness and a grief when I think of them, mingled with that strange, aching inexplicable feeling that I should have been there.

I thought at first he was faking. Spirits were high; Jackson was fighting with someone in a corner; I was in a hurry. Perhaps he had been unconscious when I entered; precious seconds passed as I quietened the form; found my pen. Anaphylactic shock, they call it—heaven knows I’d heard enough about it from the boy himself, though I’d always assumed his ailments were more to do with his overprotective mother than his actual physical condition.

It was all in his file, as I discovered too late; along with the many recommendations she had sent us concerning his diet, exercise, uniform requirements (man-made fabrics gave him a rash), phobias, antibiotics, religious instruction, and social integration. Under allergies: wheat (mild intolerance); and, in capital letters marked with an asterisk and several exclamation marks, NUTS!!

Of course, Anderton-Pullitt doesn’t eat nuts. He consumes only food that has been declared risk-free by his mother and which, furthermore, corresponds to his own rather limited idea of what is acceptable. Every day the contents of his lunch box consist of exactly the same things: two cream cheese and Marmite sandwiches on wheat-free bread, cut into four; one tomato; one banana; a packet of Maynards Wine Gums (of which he discards all but the red and black sweets); and a can of Fanta. As it is, it takes him all lunchtime to consume this meal; he never goes to the tuck shop; never accepts food from any other boy.

Don’t ask me how I managed to carry him downstairs. It was an effort; boys milled uselessly around me in excitement or confusion; I called for help, but no one came except for Gerry Grachvogel next door, who looked close to fainting and gasped “oh dear, oh dear,” wringing his little rabbity hands and glancing nervously from side to side.

“Gerry, get help,” I ordered, balancing Anderton-Pullitt on one shoulder. “Call an ambulance. Modo fac.”

Grachvogel just gaped at me. It was Allen-Jones who responded, running down the stairs two at a time, almost knocking over Isabelle Tapi, who was coming up. McNair raced off in the direction of Pat Bishop’s office, and Pink and Tayler helped me support the unconscious boy. By the time we reached the Lower Corridor I felt as if my lungs were filled with hot lead, and it was with real gratitude that I passed on my burden to Bishop, who seemed cheered to have something physical to do, and who picked up Anderton-Pullitt as if he were a baby.

Behind me, I was vaguely aware that Sutcliff had finished taking the register. Allen-Jones was on the phone to the hospital—“They say it’ll be quicker if you drive him to Casualty yourself, sir!”—Grachvogel was trying to retrieve his form, who had followed en masse to see what was happening, and now the New Head emerged from his office, looking aghast, with Pat Bishop at his side and Marlene peering anxiously from over his shoulder.

“Mr. Straitley!” Even in such an emergency as this, he retains a certain curious stiffness, as if constructed from some other medium—plaster, maybe whalebone—than flesh. “Could you perhaps please explain to me—” But the world had become full of noises, among which my heartbeat was the most compelling; I was reminded of the old jungle epics of my childhood, in which adventurers scaled volcanoes to the sinister cacophony of native drums.

I leaned against the wall of the Lower Corridor, as my legs suddenly effected a transformation from bone, vein, sinew, to something more akin to jelly. My lungs hurt; there was a spot, somewhere in the region of my top waistcoat button, which felt as if someone very large were poking it repeatedly with an outstretched forefinger, as if to emphasize some kind of point. I looked round for a chair to sit upon, but it was too late; the world tilted, and I began to slide down the wall.

“Mr. Straitley!” From the upside-down perspective, the Head looked more sinister than ever. A shrunken Head, I thought vaguely, just the thing to placate the Volcano God—and in spite of the pain in my chest I could not quite prevent myself from laughing. “Mr. Straitley! Mr. Bishop! Can someone please tell me what is going on here?”

The invisible finger poked me again, and I sat down on the floor. Marlene, ever efficient, reacted first; she knelt down beside me without hesitation and pulled open my jacket to feel my heart. The drums pulsed; now I could sense rather than feel the movement around me.

“Mr. Straitley, hang on!” She smelled of something flowery and feminine; I felt I should make some witty remark but couldn’t think of anything to say. My chest hurt; my eardrums roared; I tried to get up but could not. I slumped a little farther, glimpsed the Powerpuff Girls on Allen-Jones’s socks, and began to laugh.

The last thing I remember was the New Head’s face looming into my field of vision and myself saying, “Bwana, the natives, they will not enter the Forbidden City,” before I passed out.

I awoke in the hospital. I had been lucky, the doctor told me; there had been what he called a minor cardiac incident, brought on by anxiety and overexertion. I wanted to get up immediately, but he refused to allow it, saying that I was to remain under supervision for at least three or four days.

A middle-aged nurse with pink hair and a kindergarten manner then asked me questions, the answers to which she wrote down with an expression of mild disapproval, as if I were a child who persisted in wetting the bed. “Now, Mr. Straitley, how many cigarettes do we smoke a week?”

“I couldn’t say, ma’am. I’m not sufficiently intimate with your smoking habits.” The nurse looked flustered. “Oh, you were talking to me,” I said. “I’m sorry, I thought perhaps you were a member of the royal family.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Mr. Straitley, I have a job to do.”

“So do I,” I said. “Third-form Latin, set two, period five.”

“I’m sure they can do without you for a little while,” said the nurse. “No one’s indispensable.”

A melancholy thought. “I thought you were supposed to make me feel better.”

“And so I shall,” she said, “as soon as we’ve finished with this little bit of paperwork.”

Well, within thirty minutes Roy Hubert Straitley (B.A.) was summarized in what looked very like a school register—cryptic abbreviations and ticks in boxes—and the nurse was looking suitably smug. I have to say it didn’t look good: age, sixty-four; sedentary job; moderate smoker; alcohol units per week, fair to sprightly; weight, somewhere between mild embonpoint and genuine avoirdupois.

The doctor read it all with an expression of grim satisfaction. It was a warning, he concluded: a sign from the gods. “You’re not twenty-one, you know,” he told me. “There are some things you just can’t do anymore.”

It’s an old drill, and I’d heard it before. “I know, I know. No smoking, no drinking, no fish and chips, no hundred-yard dash, no fancy women, no—”

He interrupted. “I’ve been speaking to your GP. A Dr. Bevans?”

“Bevans. I know him well—1975 to 1979. Bright lad. Got an A in Latin. Read medicine at Durham.”

“Quite.” The syllable spoke volumes in disapproval. “He tells me he’s been concerned about you for some time.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Drat it. That’s what comes of giving boys a Classical education. They turn against you, the little swine, they turn against you, and before you know what’s happening, you’re on a fat-free diet, wearing sweatpants, and checking out the old peoples’ homes.

“So, tell me the worst. What does the little upstart recommend this time? Hot ale? Magnetism? Leeches? I remember when he was in my form, little round boy, always in trouble. And now he’s telling me what to do?”

“He’s very fond of you, Mr. Straitley.”

Here it comes, I thought.

“But you’re sixty-five years old—”

“Sixty-four. My birthday’s on November fifth. Bonfire Night.”

He dismissed Bonfire Night with a shake of his head. “And you seem to think you can go on forever as you always have—”

“What’s the alternative? Exposure on a rocky crag?”

The doctor sighed. “I’m sure an educated man like yourself could find retirement both rewarding and stimulating. You could take up a hobby—”

A hobby, forsooth! “I’m not retiring.”

“Be reasonable, Mr. Straitley—”

St. Oswald’s has been my world for over thirty years. What else is there? I sat up on the trolley bed and swung my legs over the side. “I feel fine.”

3

Thursday, 30th September

Poor old Straitley. I went to see him, you know, as soon as school finished, and found that he’d already checked himself out of the cardiac ward, to the disapproval of the staff. But his address was in the St. Oswald’s handbook, so I went there instead, bringing with me a little pot plant I had bought at the hospital shop.

I’d never seen him out of character before. An old man, I realized, with an old man’s white stubble under his chin and an old man’s bony white feet in battered leather slippers. He seemed almost touchingly pleased to see me. “But you needn’t have worried,” he declared, “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Really? So soon?” I almost loved him for it; but I was concerned too. I’m enjoying our game too much to let him slip away on a stupid principle. “Shouldn’t you rest, at least for a day or two?”

“Don’t you start,” he said. “I’ve had enough of that from the hospital. Take up a hobby, he says—something quiet like taxidermy or macramé—Gods, why doesn’t he just hand me the hemlock bowl and have done with it?”

I thought he was overdramatizing, and said so.

“Well,” said Straitley, pulling a face. “It’s what I’m good at.”

His house is a tiny two-up, two-down midterrace about ten minutes’ walk from St. Oswald’s. The hallway is stacked high with books—some on shelves, others not—so that the original color of the wallpaper is almost impossible to detect. The carpets are worn right down to the weft, except in the parlor, where lurks the ghost of a brown Axminster. It smells of dust and polish and the dog that died five years ago; a big school radiator in the hallway throws out an unforgiving blast of heat; there is a tiny kitchen with a floor of mosaic tiles; and, covering every scrap of uncluttered wall, a multitude of class photographs.

He offered me tea in a St. Oswald’s mug, and some dubious-looking chocolate digestives from a tin on the mantelpiece. I noticed that he looks smaller at home.

“How’s Anderton-Pullitt?” Apparently he’d been asking the same question every ten minutes at the hospital, even after the boy was out of danger. “Did they find out what happened?”

I shook my head. “I’m sure no one blames you, Mr. Straitley.”

“That isn’t the point.”

And it wasn’t; the pictures on the walls said as much, with their double rows of young faces; I wondered whether Leon might be among them somewhere. What would I do if I saw his face now, in Straitley’s house? And what would I do if I saw myself beside him, cap crammed over my eyes, blazer buttoned tightly over my secondhand shirt?

“Misfortune comes in groups of three,” said Straitley, reaching for a biscuit, then changing his mind. “First Fallow, now Anderton-Pullitt—I’m waiting to see what the next one will be.”

I smiled. “I had no idea you were superstitious, sir.”

“Superstitious? It comes with the territory.” He took the biscuit after all, and dipped it in his tea. “You can’t work at St. Oswald’s for as long as I have without believing in signs and portents and—”

“Ghosts?” I suggested slyly.

He did not return my smile. “Of course,” he said. “The bloody place is full of them.” I wondered for a moment if he was thinking of my father. Or Leon. For a moment, I wondered if I was one myself.

4

It was during the summer preceding my thirteenth birthday when John Snyde began—slowly and inconspicuously—to unravel. Small things at first, barely noticeable within the greater picture of my life, where Leon loomed large and everything else was reduced to a series of vague constructions on a far and hazy horizon. But as July waxed and the end of term came closer, his temper, always a presence, became a constant.

Most of all, I remember his anger. That summer, it seemed, my father was always in a rage. At me; at the school; at the mysterious graffiti artists who spray-painted the side of the Games Pavilion. At the junior boys who called out at him as he rode the big lawn mower. At the two older boys who had ridden it that time, and who had caused him to receive an official reprimand. At the neighbors’ dogs, who left small unwanted presents on the cricket lawn, which he had to remove using a rolled-up plastic bag and a paper tissue. At the government; at the landlord of the pub; at the people who moved over to the other side of the pavement to avoid him as he came home, mumbling to himself, from the supermarket.

One Monday morning only a few days from the end of term, he caught a first-year boy searching under the counter in the Porter’s Lodge. Ostensibly for a lost bag, but John Snyde knew better than to believe that story. The boy’s intentions were clear from his face—theft, vandalism, or some other means to disgrace John Snyde—already the boy had discovered the small bottle of Irish whiskey hidden underneath a pile of old newspapers, and his small eyes gleamed with malice and satisfaction. So thought my father; and, recognizing one of his young tormentors—a monkey-faced boy with an insolent manner—he set out to teach him a lesson.

Oh, I don’t suppose he really hurt him. His loyalty to St. Oswald’s was bitter but true; and although by now he loathed many of the individuals—the Bursar, the Head, and especially the boys—the institution itself still commanded his respect. But the boy tried to bluster; told my father You can’t touch me; demanded to be let out of the lodge; and finally, in a voice that drilled into my father’s head (Sunday night had been a late one, and this time, it showed) squalled, Let me out, let me out let me out let me out—until his cries alerted Dr. Tidy in the nearby Bursar’s office, and he came running.

By this time the monkey-faced boy—Matthews, he was called—was crying. John Snyde was a big man, intimidating even when he was not enraged, and that day he had been very, very angry. Tidy saw my father’s bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothing; saw the boy’s tearful face and the wet patch spreading across his gray uniform trousers, and drew the inevitable conclusion. It was the last straw; John Snyde was summoned to the Headmaster’s office that very morning, with Pat Bishop present (to ensure the fairness of the proceedings), and given a second, final warning.

The Old Head would not have done it. My father was convinced of that. Shakeshafte knew the pressures of working within a school; he would have known how to defuse the situation without causing a scene. But the new man was from the state sector; versed in political correctness and toytown activism. Besides, he was a weakling beneath his stern exterior, and this opportunity to establish himself as a strong, decisive leader (and at no professional risk) was too good to miss.

There would be an enquiry, he said. For the moment Snyde was to continue his duties, reporting every day to the Bursar for instructions, but was to have no contact at all with the boys. Any further incidents—the word was uttered with the prissy self-satisfaction of the churchgoing teetotaler—would result in immediate dismissal.

My father remained certain that Bishop was on his side. Good old Bishop, he said; wasted in that office job; should have been Head. Of course, my father would have liked him; that big, bluff man with the rugby-player’s nose and the proletarian tastes. But Bishop’s loyalties were to St. Oswald’s; much as he might sympathize with my father’s grievances, I knew that when it came to a choice, the school had all his allegiance.

Still, he said, the holidays would give my father time to sort himself out. He’d been drinking too much, that he knew; he’d let himself go. But he was a good man at heart; he’d given loyal service to the school for nearly five years; he could get through this.

A typical Bishop phrase, that; you can get through this. He talks to the boys in the same soldierly way, like a rugby coach rallying the team. His conversation, like my father’s, was riddled with clichés—You can get through this. Take it like a man. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

It was a language my father loved and understood, and for a time it rallied him. For Bishop’s sake, he cut down on his drinking. He had his hair cut and dressed with greater care. Conscious of the accusation of having let himself go, as Bishop put it, he even began to work out in the evenings, doing press-ups in front of the TV while I read a book and dreamed he was not my father.

Then, the holidays came, and the pressures on him diminished. His duties were equally reduced; there were no boys to make life unbearable for him; he mowed the lawns unhindered and patrolled the grounds alone, keeping a sharp watch out for spray-paint artists or stray dogs.

At these times I could believe my father was almost happy; keys in one hand, a can of light ale in the other, he roamed his little empire secure in the knowledge that he had a place there—that of a small but necessary cog in a glorious machine. Bishop had said as much; therefore it must be true.

As for myself, I had other preoccupations. I gave Leon three clear days after the end of term before phoning him to arrange a meeting; he was friendly but in no hurry and told me that he and his mother had some people coming to stay, and that he was expected to entertain them. That came as a blow, after everything I had so carefully planned; but I accepted it without complaint, knowing as I did that the best way to deal with Leon’s occasional perverseness was to ignore it and to let him have his way.

“Are these people friends of your mother’s?” I inquired, more to keep him talking than for information.

“Yeah. The Tynans and their kid. It’s a bit of a drag, but Charlie and I have to rally round. You know, pass the cucumber sandwiches, pour the sherry, and all that.” He sounded regretful, but I couldn’t shake the idea that he was smiling.

“Kid?” I said, with visions of a clever, cheery schoolboy who would eclipse me completely in Leon’s eyes.

“Hm. Francesca. Little fat girl, mad about ponies. Good job Charlie’s here; otherwise I’d probably have to look after her as well.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t help sounding a little mournful.

“Don’t worry,” Leon told me. “It won’t be for long. I’ll give you a call, okay?”

That rattled me. Of course, I couldn’t refuse to give Leon my phone number. But the thought that my father might answer his call filled me with anxiety. “Hey, I’ll probably see you,” I said. “No big deal.”

And so I waited. I was at the same time anxious and bored beyond belief: torn between the desire to wait by the phone in case Leon called, and the equally strong compulsion to ride my bicycle out by his house in the hope of “accidentally” meeting him. I had no other friends: reading made me impatient; I couldn’t even listen to my records because they made me think of Leon. It was a beautiful summer, the kind of summer that only exists in memory and certain books, hot and blue-green and filled with bees and murmurings, but for me it might as well have been raining every day. Without Leon there was no pleasure in it; I lurked in corners; I stole from shops out of sheer spite.

After a while, my father noticed. His good intentions had brought about a new, temporary alertness, and he began to make comments on my listlessness and quick temper. Growing pains, he called it, and recommended exercise and fresh air.

Certainly, I was growing; I would be thirteen in August, and I had entered a development spurt. I remained, as always, skinny and bird-boned, but I was aware that even so, my St. Oswald’s uniform had grown rather tight, especially the blazer (I’d need to get another before long); and that my trousers left fully two inches of ankle showing.

A week passed, then most of another. I could feel the holidays slipping by and could do nothing about it. Had Leon gone away? Passing his house on my new bike, I’d seen an open screen door leading to the patio; heard laughter and voices on the warm air, though I could not tell how many they were, nor whether my friend’s voice was among them.

I wondered what the visitors were like. A banker, he’d said, and some kind of high-powered secretary, like Leon’s mother. Professional people, who ate cucumber sandwiches and took drinks on the veranda. The kind of people John and Sharon Snyde would never be, no matter how much money they had. The kind of parents I would have wanted for myself.

The thought obsessed me; I began to visualize the Tynans—he in a light linen jacket, she in a white summer dress—with Mrs. Mitchell standing by with a jug of Pimm’s and a tray of tall glasses, and Leon and his sister, Charlie, sitting on the grass, all of them gilded with the light and with something more—the something that made them different from myself, the something I had glimpsed for the first time at St. Oswald’s, the day I crossed the line.

That line. It loomed ahead of me once more, taunting me once more with its proximity. Now I could almost see it, the golden line that set me apart from everything I desired. What more must I do? Hadn’t I spent the last three months in the court of my enemies, like a stray wolf that joins the hunting hounds to steal their food in secret? Why then that sense of isolation? Why hadn’t Leon called?

Could it be that he somehow sensed my otherness and was ashamed to be seen in my company? Hiding in the gatehouse, afraid to come out in case I was seen, I was half convinced of it. There was something cheap about me—a scent, perhaps, a polyester shine—that had alerted him. I had not been good enough; he had spotted me. It was driving me mad; I needed to know; and that Sunday I dressed carefully and rode my bike over to Leon’s house.

It was a bold move. I had never actually been to Leon’s house before—riding past it didn’t count—and I found that my hands were shaking a little as I opened the gate and walked down the long drive toward the porch. It was a big, double-fronted, Edwardian house with lawns to the front and side and a wooded back garden with a summer house and a walled orchard.

Old money, as my father would have said with envy and contempt; but to me it was the world I’d read about in books; it was Swallows and Amazons and the Famous Five; it was lemonade on the lawn; it was boarding school; it was picnics by the seaside and a jolly cook who made scones, and an elegant mother reclining on a sofa, and a pipe-smoking father who was always right, always benevolent, though rarely at home. I was not yet thirteen and already I felt desperately old, as if childhood had somehow been denied me—that childhood, at least; the one I deserved.

I knocked; I could hear voices coming from behind the house. Leon’s mother, saying something about Mrs. Thatcher and the Unions, a man’s voice—The only way to do it is to—and the muted chink of someone pouring from a jug filled with ice cubes. Then, Leon’s voice, sounding very close, saying, “Vae, anything but politics, please. Anyone want a lemon-vodka ice?”

“Yeah!” That was Charlie, Leon’s sister.

Then, another voice, a girl’s, low and well modulated. “Sure. Okay.”

That must be Francesca. It had sounded rather a silly name to me when Leon had told me over the phone, but suddenly I wasn’t sure anymore. I edged away from the door toward the side of the house—if anyone saw me I would tell them I had knocked but had received no reply—and peered around the edge of the building.

It was much as I had imagined it. There was a veranda behind the house, shaded by a large tree that cast a mosaic of light and shade over the tables and chairs that had been placed underneath. Mrs. Mitchell was there, blond and pretty in jeans and a clean white shirt, which made her look very young; then Mrs. Tynan, in sandals and a cool linen dress; then there was Charlotte, sitting on a homemade swing, and facing me, in his jeans and battered sneakers and his faded Stranglers T-shirt, was Leon.

He’d grown, I thought. In three weeks his features had sharpened, his body lengthened, and his hair, which had already been borderline in terms of St. Oswald’s regulations, now fell across his eyes. Out of uniform he might have been anyone; he looked like any other boy from my own school but for that shine; the patina that comes from a lifetime of living in a house like this, of learning Latin with Quaz in the Bell Tower, of eating smoked-salmon blinis and lemon-vodka ice instead of half a lager and fish and chips, and never having to lock your bedroom door on Saturday nights.

A wave of love and longing overwhelmed me; not just for Leon, but for everything he stood for. It was so powerful, so mystically adult in its intensity, that for a moment I barely noticed the girl at his side, Francesca, the fat little pony girl of whom he’d seemed so contemptuous on the phone. Then I saw her, and for a time stood watching, forgetting even to hide in my amazement and dismay.

Fat little pony girl she might once have been. But now—there were no words to describe her. All comparisons failed. My own experience of what constituted desirability was limited to such examples as Pepsi, the women in my father’s magazines, and the likes of Tracey Delacey. I couldn’t see it myself—but then again I wouldn’t, would I?

I thought of Pepsi and her false nails and perpetual smell of hair spray; of gum-chewing Tracey, with her blotchy legs and sullen face; and of the magazine women, coy but somehow carnivorous, opened up like something on a pathologist’s slab. I thought of my mother, and Cinnabar.

This girl was a different race entirely. Fourteen, maybe fifteen; slim; tawny. The embodiment of shine; hair tied carelessly back in a ponytail; long, sleek legs beneath khaki shorts. A small gold cross nestled in the hollow of her throat. Dancer’s feet kicked out at an angle; dappled face in the summer green. This was why Leon hadn’t called; it was this girl; this beautiful girl.

“Hey! Hey, Pinchbeck!”

My God, he’d seen me. I considered making a run for it; but Leon was already coming toward me, puzzled but not annoyed, with the girl a few steps behind him. My chest felt tight; my heart shrunk to the size of a nut. I tried a smile; it felt like a mask. “Hello, Leon,” I said. “Hello, Mrs. Mitchell. I was just passing by.”

Imagine, if you can, that terrible afternoon. I wanted to go home, but Leon would not allow it; instead I endured two hours of utter wretchedness on the back lawn, drinking lemonade that soured my stomach while Leon’s mother asked me questions about my family and Mr. Tynan slapped me repeatedly on the shoulder and speculated on all the mischief Leon and I got up to at school.

It was torture. My head ached; my stomach churned, and throughout all of it I was obliged to smile and be polite and reply to questions whilst Leon and his girl—there was no doubt now that she was his girl—lounged and whispered to each other in the shade, Leon’s brown hand laid almost casually over Francesca’s tawny one, his gray eyes filled with summer and with her.

I don’t know what I said in answer to their questions. I remember Leon’s mother being especially, agonizingly kind: she went out of her way to include me; asked me about my hobbies, my holidays, my thoughts. I replied almost at random, with an animal’s instinct to stay hidden, and I must have passed scrutiny, although Charlotte watched me in a silence I might have found suspicious if my mind had not been wholly taken up with my own suffering.

Finally, Mrs. Mitchell must have noticed something, because she looked at me closely and observed that I was looking rather pale.

“Headache,” I said, trying to smile, while behind her Leon played with a long strand of Francesca’s honey-mink hair. “I get them sometimes,” I improvised desperately. “Better go home and lie down for a while.”

Leon’s mother was reluctant to let me go. She suggested that I lie down in Leon’s room; offered to get me an aspirin; overwhelmed me with kindness so that I was almost reduced to tears. She must have seen something in my face then, because she smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “All right, then, Julian, dear,” she said. “Go home and lie down. Perhaps that’s best, after all.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Mitchell.” I nodded gratefully—I really was feeling ill. “I’ve had a lovely time. Honest.” Leon waved at me, and Mrs. Mitchell insisted on giving me a large and sticky slice of cake to take home, wrapped in a paper napkin. As I was walking back down the drive I heard her voice, low and carrying from behind the house: “What a funny little chap, Leon. So polite and reserved. Is he a good friend of yours?”

5

St. Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys

Tuesday, 5th October

The official report from the hospital was anaphylactic shock, caused by ingestion of peanuts or peanut-contaminated foodstuffs, possibly accidental.

Of course, there was a terrible fuss. It was a disgrace, said Mrs. Anderton-Pullitt to Pat Bishop, who was there; school was supposed to be a safe environment for her son. Why wasn’t there any supervision at the time of his collapse? How had his schoolmaster failed to notice that poor James was unconscious?

Pat dealt with the distressed mother as best he could. He’s in his element in this kind of situation; knows how to defuse antagonism; has a shoulder of comforting proportions; projects a convincing air of authority. He promised that the incident would be thoroughly investigated but assured Mrs. Anderton-Pullitt that Mr. Straitley was a most conscientious Master and that every effort had been made to ensure her son’s safety.

By then, the individual concerned was sitting up in bed, reading Practical Aeronautics and looking rather pleased with himself.

At the same time, Mr. Anderton-Pullitt, school governor and ex-England cricketer, was pulling rank with the hospital administration in his attempt to have the remains of his son’s sandwiches analyzed for nut residue. If they yielded as much as a trace, he said, a certain health-food manufacturer would be sued for every penny it possessed, not to mention a certain chain of retailers. But as it happened, the tests were never made, because before they could get started, the peanut was found floating and still mostly intact, at the bottom of James’s can of Fanta.

At first, the Anderton-Pullitts were bewildered. How could a peanut have found its way into their son’s drink? Their initial reaction was to contact (and sue) the manufacturers, but it soon became obvious that any malpractice on their part was, at best, unprovable. The can had already been opened; anything might conceivably have fallen inside.

Fallen, or been put there.

It was inescapable; if James’s drink had been tampered with, then the culprit must have been someone in the form. Worse still, the perpetrator must have known that his act might have dangerous, if not fatal, consequences. The Anderton-Pullitts took the matter straight to the Head, bypassing even Bishop in their rage and indignation, and announced their intention, if he did not pursue the matter, of going directly to the police.

I should have been there. Unforgivable, that I was not; and yet when I awoke the morning after my brief stint in the hospital I felt so exhausted—so wretchedly old—that I called the school and told Bob Strange that I wasn’t coming in.

“Well, I didn’t expect you to,” said Strange, sounding surprised. “I assumed that they’d keep you in hospital over the weekend, at least.” His prissy, official tone failed to hide his real disapproval that they had not. “I can have you covered for the next six weeks, no problem.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll be back on Monday.”

But by Monday the news had broken; there had been an investigation of my form on Friday afternoon; witnesses had been called and questioned; lockers searched; telephone calls exchanged. Dr. Devine had been consulted, in his capacity as Health and Safety officer, and he, Bishop, Strange, the Head, and Dr. Pooley, the Chairman of the governors, had spent a long time in the Head’s office with the Anderton-Pullitts.

Result: I returned on Monday morning to find the class in uproar. The incident with Knight had even eclipsed the recent—and most unwelcome—piece in the Examiner, with its sinister implication of a secret informant within the school. The findings of the Head’s investigation were irrefutable; on the day of the incident, Knight had bought a packet of peanuts from the school tuck shop and had brought them into the form room for lunch. He denied it at first, but several witnesses remembered it, including a member of staff. Finally Knight had confessed; yes, he had bought the peanuts but denied tampering with anyone’s drink. Besides, he said tearfully, he liked Anderton-Pullitt; he would never have done anything to hurt him.

A record sheet had been produced from the day of Knight’s suspension, listing the witnesses to the fight between himself and Jackson. Sure enough, Anderton-Pullitt was among them. A motive was now clearly established.

Well, it wouldn’t have stood up in the Old Bailey. But a school is not a court of law; it has its own rules and its methods of applying them; it has its own system, its safeguards. Like the church, like the army, it looks after its own. By the time I returned, Knight had been judged, found guilty, and suspended from school until after half-term.

My problem was that I didn’t quite believe he’d done it.

“It’s not that Knight isn’t capable of something like that,” I told Dianne Dare in the Common Room that lunchtime. “He’s a sly little oik, and far more likely to cause mischief by stealth than to play up in public, but—” I gave a sigh. “I don’t like it. I don’t like him—but I can’t believe that even he could have been that stupid.”

“Never underestimate stupidity,” remarked Pearman, who was standing nearby.

“No, but this is malice,” said Dianne. “If the boy knew what he was doing—”

“If he knew what he was doing,” interrupted Light from his place under the clock, “then he should be bloody well locked up. You read about these kids nowadays—rapes, muggings, murders, God knows what—and they can’t even put them away for it because the bloody bleeding-heart liberals won’t let ’em.”

“In my day,” said McDonaugh darkly, “we had the cane.”

“Bugger that,” said Light. “Bring back conscription. Teach ’em some discipline.”

Gods, I thought, what an ass. He held forth in this muscular, brainless style for a few minutes more, attracting a sultry glance from Isabelle Tapi, who was watching from the yogurt corner.

Young Keane, who had also been listening, did a quick, comic mime just outside of the games teacher’s line of vision, twisting his sharp, clever face into an exact parody of Light’s expression. I pretended not to notice and hid my smile behind my hand.

“It’s all very well to go on about discipline,” said Roach from behind the Mirror, “but what sanctions do we have? Do something bad, and you get detention. Do something worse, you get suspended, which is the opposite. Where’s the sense in that?”

“No sense at all,” said Light. “But we’ve got to be seen to be doing something. Whether or not Knight did it—”

“And if he didn’t?” said Roach.

McDonaugh made a dismissive gesture. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is order. Whoever the troublemaker is, you can be bloody sure he’ll think twice about stepping out of line again if he knows that the minute he does, he’ll get the cane.”

Light nodded. Keane pulled another face. Dianne shrugged, and Pearman gave a little smile of vague and ironic superiority.

“It was Knight,” said Roach with emphasis. “Just the kind of stupid thing he would do.”

“I still don’t like it. It feels wrong.”

The boys were unusually reticent on the subject. In normal circumstances, an incident of this type should provide a welcome break from the school’s routine; petty scandals and minor mishaps; secrets and fights; the furtive stuff of adolescence. But this, it seemed, was different. A line had been crossed, and even those boys who had never had a good word to say about Anderton-Pullitt viewed the incident with unease and disapproval.

“I mean, he’s not all there, is he, sir?” said Jackson. “You know—not a mong or anything, but you can’t say he’s completely normal.”

“Will he be all right, sir?” asked Tayler, who has allergies himself.

“Fortunately, yes.” The boy was being kept at home for the present, but as far as anyone could tell, he had made a complete recovery. “But it could have been fatal.”

There was an awkward pause as the boys looked at one another. As yet, few of them have encountered death beyond the occasional dog, cat, or grandparent; the thought that one of them could actually have died—right in front of them, in their own form room—was suddenly rather frightening.

“It must have been an accident,” said Tayler at last.

“I think so too.” I hoped that was true.

“Dr. Devine says we can have counseling if we need it,” said McNair.

“Do you need it?”

“Do we get to miss lessons, sir?”

I looked at him and saw him grinning. “Over my dead body.”

Throughout the day the feeling of unrest intensified. Allen-Jones was hyperactive; Sutcliff depressed; Jackson argumentative; Pink anxious. It was windy too; and the wind, as every schoolteacher knows, makes classes unruly and pupils excitable. Doors slammed; windows rattled; October was in with a blast, and suddenly it was autumn.

I like autumn. The drama of it; the golden lion roaring through the back door of the year, shaking its mane of leaves. A dangerous time; of violent rages and deceptive calm; of fireworks in the pockets and conkers in the fist. It is the season in which I feel closest to the boy I was, and at the same time closest to death. It is St. Oswald’s at its most beautiful; gold among the lindens, its tower howling like a throat.

But this year, there is more. Ninety-nine terms; thirty-three autumns; half of my life. This year those terms weigh unexpectedly heavy, and I wonder whether young Bevans may not after all be right. Retirement need not be a death sentence. One more term and I will have scored my Century; to withdraw on such a note can carry no shame. Besides, things are changing, and so they should. Only I am too old to change.

On my way home on Monday night I looked into the Porter’s Lodge. Fallow’s replacement has not yet been found, and in the meantime, Jimmy Watt has taken over as many as he can manage of the Porter’s duties. One of these is answering the phone in the lodge, but his telephone manner is not good, and he has a tendency to hang up by mistake when transferring calls. As a result, calls had been missed throughout the day, and frustrations were running high.

It was the Bursar’s fault; Jimmy does what he’s told but has no concept of working independently. He can change a fuse or replace a lock; he can sweep up fallen leaves; he can even climb up a telegraph pole to retrieve a pair of shoes, tied together by their laces and flung across the wires by a school bully. Light calls him Jimmy Forty-Watt and jeers at his moon face and his slow way of talking. Of course, Light was a bully himself a few years ago; you can still see it in his red face and aggressive, oddly careful walk—steroids or hemorrhoids, I’m not sure which. In any case, Jimmy should never have been left in charge of the lodge, and Dr. Tidy knew it; it was simply that it was easier (and cheaper, of course) to use him as a stopgap until a new appointment was made. Besides, Fallow had been with the school for over fifteen years, and you can’t turn a man out of his home overnight, whatever the reason. I found myself thinking about this as I passed the lodge; it wasn’t that I’d especially liked Fallow; but he had been a part of the school—a small but necessary part—and his absence was felt.

There was a woman in the lodge as I went past. I never questioned her presence, assuming she was a secretary drafted in through the school’s agency to take calls and to cover for Jimmy when he was called upon to perform one of his many other duties. A graying woman in a suit, rather older than the standard agency temp, whose face seemed dimly familiar. I should have asked who she was. Dr. Devine is always talking about intruders, about shootings in American schools and how easy it would be for some crazed person to enter the buildings and go on the rampage—but that’s just Devine. He’s the Health and Safety man, after all, and he has to justify his salary.

But I was in a hurry, and I did not speak to the graying woman. It was only when I saw her byline and her photo in the Examiner that I recognized her; and by then it was too late. The mystery informant had struck again, and this time, I was his target.

6

Monday, 11th October

Well, Mrs. Knight, as you might expect, did not take kindly to the suspension of her only son. You know the type: expensive, arrogant, slightly neurotic, and afflicted with that curious blindness that only the mothers of teenage sons seem to possess. She marched down to St. Oswald’s the morning after the Head’s decision, demanding to see the Head. He was out, of course; instead, an emergency meeting was convened, including Bishop (nervous and unwell), Dr. Devine (Health and Safety), and, in the absence of Roy Straitley, myself.

Mrs. Knight looked murderous in Chanel. In Bishop’s office, sitting very straight on a hard chair, she glared at the three of us with eyes like zircons.

“Mrs. Knight,” said Devine. “The boy could have died.”

Mrs. Knight was not impressed. “I can understand your concern,” she said. “Given that there seems to have been no supervision at all at the time of the incident. However, regarding the matter of my son’s involvement—”

Bishop interrupted. “Well, that isn’t entirely true,” he began. “Several members of staff were present at different times throughout break, although—”

“And did anyone see my son put a peanut in the other boy’s drink?”

“Mrs. Knight, it isn’t—”

“Well? Did they?”

Bishop looked uncomfortable. It had been the Head’s decision to suspend Knight, after all; and I had a feeling that he himself might have handled the matter differently. “The evidence suggests that he did it, Mrs. Knight. I’m not saying he did it with malice—”

Flatly: “My son doesn’t tell lies.”

“All boys tell lies.” That was Devine—true enough, as it happened, but hardly calculated to appease Mrs. Knight. She leveled her gaze upon him. “Really?” she said. “In that case, maybe you should re-examine Anderton-Pullitt’s account of the supposed fight between Jackson and my son.”

Devine was taken aback. “Mrs. Knight, I really don’t see what relevance—”

“Don’t you? I do.” She turned to Bishop. “What I see is a concerted campaign of victimization against my son. It’s common knowledge that Mr. Straitley has his little favorites—his Brodie Boys, I understand he calls them—but I didn’t expect you to take his side in this. My son has been bullied, accused, humiliated, and now suspended from school—something that will go on his class record and perhaps even affect his university prospects—without even being given a chance to clear his name. And do you know why, Mr. Bishop? Do you have any idea why?”

Bishop was completely lost in the face of this attack. His charm—real as it is—is his only weapon, and Mrs. Knight was armored against it. The smile that had tamed my father failed to melt her ice; in fact, it seemed to infuriate her still more.

“I’ll tell you, shall I?” she said. “My son has been accused of theft, of assault, and now—as far as I can understand—of attempted murder—” At this point Bishop tried to interrupt, but she waved his protest aside. “And do you know why he has been singled out like this? Have you asked Mr. Straitley? Have you asked the other boys?” She paused for effect, and as she met my eyes I gave her an encouraging nod, and she bugled, just as her son had in Straitley’s class:

“Because he is Jewish! My son is a victim of discrimination! I want a proper investigation of all this”—she glared at Bishop—“and if I don’t get one, then you can expect a letter from my solicitor first thing in the morning!”

There was a resounding silence. Then Mrs. Knight swept out in a fusillade of heels; Dr. Devine looked shaken; Pat Bishop sat down with his hand over his eyes; and I allowed myself the tiniest of smiles.

Of course, it was understood that the matter would not be discussed outside the meetings room. Devine made that clear from the start, and I agreed, with becoming earnestness and respect. I should not have been there in the first place, said Devine; I had only been asked to attend as a witness, failing the presence of the boy’s form master. Not that anyone regretted Straitley’s absence; both Bishop and Devine were adamant that the old man, engaging as he was, would only have made a foul situation even worse.

“Of course there’s no truth in it,” said Bishop, recovering over a cup of tea. “There’s never been any question of anti-Semitism at St. Oswald’s. Never.”

Devine looked less convinced. “I’m as fond of Roy Straitley as anyone,” he said. “But there’s no denying he can be rather odd. Just because he’s been here longer than anyone, he tends to think he runs the place.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t mean any harm,” I said. “It’s a stressful job for a man of his age, and everyone can make the occasional error of judgment from time to time.”

Bishop looked at me. “What do you mean? Have you heard anything?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you sure?” That was Devine, almost falling over in his eagerness.

“Absolutely, sir. I simply meant—” I hesitated.

“What? Out with it!”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, sir. For his age, I think he’s remarkably alert. It’s just that recently I’ve been noticing—” And with becoming reluctance I mentioned the missing register, the missed e-mails, the ridiculous fuss he’d made over the loss of that old green pen, not forgetting those few vital, register-less moments, when he had failed to notice the unconscious boy gasping out his life on the classroom floor.

Emphatic denial is by far the best tactic when seeking to incriminate an enemy. And so I managed to convey my utmost respect and admiration of Roy Straitley whilst innocently implying the rest. Thus I am shown to be a loyal member of the school—if a trifle naive—and second, I ensure that doubt remains like a splinter in the minds of Bishop and Devine, preparing them for the next headline, which, as it happened, was to feature in the Examiner this very week. NUTS TO YOU, SIR! Colin Knight is a studious, shy young man who has found the social and academic pressures of St. Oswald’s increasingly difficult to deal with. “There’s a lot of bullying,” he told the Examiner, “but most of us don’t dare report it. Some boys can do anything they like at St. Oswald’s, because some of the teachers are on their side, and anyone who makes a complaint is bound to get into trouble.” Certainly, Colin Knight does not look like a troublemaker. And yet, if we are to believe the complaints leveled against him this term by his form master (Roy Straitley, 65), he has, in three short weeks, been guilty of numerous instances of theft, lying, and bullying, culminating in his suspension from school following a bizarre accusation of assault, when a fellow student (James Anderton-Pullitt, 13) choked on a peanut. We spoke to John Fallow, dismissed from St. Oswald’s two weeks ago after fifteen years’ loyal service. “I’m glad to see young Knight standing up for himself,” Fallow told the Examiner. “But the Anderton-Pullitts are school governors, and the Knights are just an ordinary family.” Pat Bishop (54), Second Master and spokesman for St. Oswald’s, told us: “This is an internal disciplinary matter which will be thoroughly investigated before any further decision is taken.” In the meantime, Colin Knight will continue his education from his bedroom, forfeiting his right to attend the classes for which his family pays seven thousand pounds a year. And although for the average St. Oswald’s pupil this may not count for much, for ordinary people like the Knights, it’s very far from peanuts.

I’m rather proud of that little piece: a medley of fact, conjecture, and low humor that should rankle suitably in the arrogant heart of St. Oswald’s. My one regret was that I could not sign my name to it—not even my assumed name, although Mole was certainly instrumental in its construction.

Instead I used a female reporter as my cover and e-mailed my copy to her as before, adding a few details to facilitate her enquiry. The piece ran, flanked by a photograph of young Knight—clean and wholesome in his school uniform—and a grainy class portrait from 1997, showing Straitley looking blotchy and dissipated, surrounded by boys.

Of course, any criticism of St. Oswald’s is balm to the Examiner. By the weekend it had resurfaced twice in the national press: once as a cheery blip on page ten of the News of the World, and once as part of a more contemplative editorial piece in the Guardian, entitled “Rough Justice in Our Independent Schools.”

All in all, a good day’s work. I’d made sure that any mention of anti-Semitism was withheld for the present and instead worked on my touching depiction of the Knights as honest folk, but poor. That’s what the readers really want—a story of people like themselves (they think), scrimping and saving to send their kids to the best possible school—although I’d like to see any of them actually blowing seven grand in beer money on fees, for God’s sake, when the government’s giving out education for free.

My father read the News of the World too, and he was filled with the same ponderous clichés about School’s your best investment and Learning is for life, though as far as I could see, it never went further than that, and if he saw the irony in his words, he never gave any sign of it.

7

St. Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys

Wednesday, 13th October

Knight was back on Monday morning. Wearing an expression of martyred bravery, like an assault victim, and the tiniest of smirks. The other boys treated him with caution but were not unkind; in fact I noticed that Brasenose, who usually avoids him, went out of his way to be friendly, sitting next to him at lunchtime and even offering him half of his chocolate bar. It was as if Brasenose, the perpetual victim, had spotted a potential defender in the newly vindicated Knight and was making an effort to cultivate his friendship.

Anderton-Pullitt was back too; looking none the worse for his near-death experience, and with a new book on First World War aircraft with which to plague us. As for myself, I’ve been worse. I said as much to Dianne Dare when she questioned the wisdom of my swift return to work, and later, to Pat Bishop who accused me of looking tired.

I have to say he isn’t looking too well himself at the moment. First the Fallow case, then the scene with Anderton-Pullitt, and finally this business with Knight . . . I’d heard from Marlene that Pat had slept more than one night in his office; and now I saw that his face was redder than usual, and his eyes bloodshot. From the way he approached me I guessed the New Head had sent him to sound me out, and I could tell Bishop wasn’t pleased about this, but as Second Master, his duty is to the head, whatever his own feelings on the matter.

“You look exhausted, Roy. Are you sure you ought to be here?”

“Nothing wrong with me that a good strict nurse can’t cure.”

He did not smile. “After what happened, I thought you might at least take a week or two.”

I could see where this was leading. “Nothing happened,” I said shortly.

“That’s not true. You had an attack—”

“Nerves. Nothing more.”

He sighed. “Roy, be reasonable—”

“Don’t lecture me, Pat. I’m not one of your boys.”

“Don’t be like that,” said Pat. “We just thought—”

“You, the Head, and Strange—”

“We just thought you could do with a rest.”

I looked at him, but he would not quite meet my eye. “A rest?” I said. I was beginning to feel annoyed. “Yes, I see that it might be very convenient if I did take a few weeks off. Give things time to settle down? Give you a chance to smooth a few ruffled feathers? Maybe pave the way for some of Mr. Strange’s new developments?”

I was right, which made him angry. He didn’t say anything, though I could tell he wanted to, and his face, already flushed, took on a deeper shade. “You’re slowing down, Roy,” he said. “Face it, you’re forgetting things. And you’re not as young as you were.”

“Is anyone?”

He frowned. “There’s been talk of having you suspended.”

“Really?” That would be Strange, or maybe Devine, with his eye to room fifty-nine and the last outpost of my little empire. “I’m sure you told them what would happen if they tried. Suspension, without a formal warning?” I’m not a Union man, but Sourgrape is, and so is the Head. “He who lives by the book dies by the book. And they know it.”

Once more, Pat did not meet my eye. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this,” he said. “But you haven’t left me any choice.”

“Tell me what?” I said, knowing the answer.

“A warning’s been drafted,” he said.

“Drafted? By whom?” As if I didn’t know. Strange, of course; the man who had already devalued my department, downsized my timetable, and who now hoped to put me to rest while the Suits and Beards took over the world.

Bishop sighed. “Listen, Roy, you’re not the only one with problems.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “Some of us, however—”

Some of us, however, are paid more than others to deal with them. It’s true, though, that we rarely think of our colleagues’ private lives. Children, lovers, homes. The boys are always astonished to see us in a context outside of St. Oswald’s—buying groceries in a supermarket; at the barber’s; in a pub. Astonished, and mildly delighted, like spotting a famous person in the street. I saw you in town on Saturday, sir! As if they imagined us hanging up behind our form room doors, like discarded gowns, between Friday night and Monday morning.

To tell the truth, I am somewhat guilty of this myself. But seeing Bishop today—I mean, really seeing him; his rugbyman’s bulk gone half to fat in spite of that daily run and his face drawn, drawn, the face of a man who has never quite understood how easily fourteen slipped away and fifty settled in—I felt an unexpected pang of sympathy.

“Listen, Pat. I know you’re—”

But Bishop had already turned to go, slouching off down the Upper Corridor, hands in pockets, broad shoulders slightly bowed. It was a pose I’d seen him adopt many times when the school rugby team lost against St. Henry’s, but I knew Bishop too well to believe that the grief implicit in his posture was anything other than a pose. No, he was angry. At himself, perhaps—he’s a good man, even if he is the Head’s man—but most of all, at my lack of cooperation, school spirit, and understanding for his own difficult position.

Oh, I felt for him—but you don’t get to be Second Master in a place like St. Oswald’s without encountering the occasional problem or two. He knows that the Head would be only too pleased to make a scapegoat of me—I don’t have much of a career ahead of me, after all, plus I’m expensive and nearing retirement. My replacement would come as a relief to many—my replacement a young chap, a corporate Suit; trained in IT; veteran of many courses; streamlined for rapid promotion. My little malaise must have given them hope. At last, an excuse to be rid of old Straitley without causing too much fuss. A dignified retirement on grounds of ill health; silver plaque; sealed envelope; flattering address to the Common Room.

As for the business of Knight and the rest—well! What could be easier than to lay the blame—ever so quietly—on a former colleague? Before your time; one of the old school, you know, awfully good chap, but set in his ways; not a team player. Not one of us.

Well, you were wrong, Headmaster. I have no intention of going gently into retirement. And as for your written warning, pone ubi sol non lucet. I’ll score my Century, or die in the attempt. One for the Honors Board.

I was still in a martial frame of mind when I got home this evening, and the invisible finger was back, poking gently but persistently at my wishbone. I took two of the pills Bevans prescribed and washed them down with a small medicinal sherry before settling down to some fifth-form marking. It was dark by the time I had finished. At seven I stood up to draw the curtains, when a movement from the garden caught my eye. I leaned closer to the window.

Mine is a long, narrow garden, a seeming throwback to the days of strip farming, with a hedge on one side, a wall on the other, and a variety of shrubs and vegetables growing more or less at random in between. At the far end there is a big old horse chestnut tree, overhanging Dog Lane, which is separated from the back garden by a fence. Under the tree is a patch of mossy grass on which I like to sit in summer (or did, before the process of getting up again became so cumbersome) and a small and decrepit shed in which I keep a few things.

I have never actually been burgled. I don’t suppose I have anything really worth stealing, unless you count books, which are generally held to be worthless by the criminal fraternity. But Dog Lane has a reputation; there is a pub at the corner, which generates noise; a fish-and-chips shop at the far end, which generates litter; and of course, Sunnybank Park Comprehensive close nearby, which generates almost anything you can think of, including noise, litter, and a twice-daily stampede past my house that would put even the most unruly Ozzies to shame. I tend to be generally tolerant of this. I even turn a blind eye to the occasional intruder hopping over the fence during the conker season. A horse chestnut tree in October belongs to everyone, Sunnybankers included.

But this was different. For a start, school was long past. It was dark and rather cold, and there was something unpleasantly furtive about the movement I had glimpsed.

Pressing my face to the window, I saw three or four shapes at the far end of the garden, not large enough to be fully adult. Boys, then; now I could hear their voices, very dimly, through the glass.

That surprised me. Usually conker hunters are quick and unobtrusive. Most people on the lane know my profession, and respect it; and the Sunnybankers to whom I have spoken about their littering habits have rarely, if ever, re-offended.

I rapped sharply on the glass. Now they would run, I thought; but instead the figures fell still, and a few seconds later I heard—unmistakeably—jeering from under the horse chestnut tree.

“That does it.” In four strides I was at the door. “Oy!” I yelled in my best magisterial voice. “What the hell do you boys think you’re doing!”

More laughter from the bottom of the garden. Two ran, I think—I saw their brief outline, etched in neon, as they climbed the fence. The other two remained, secure in the darkness and reassured by the length of the narrow path.

“I said what are you doing?” It was the first time in years that a boy—even a Sunnybanker—had defied me. I felt a surge of adrenaline and the invisible finger poked at me again. “Come here at once!”

“Or what?” The voice was brash and youthful. “Think you can take me, you fat bastard?”

“Like fuck he can, he’s too old!”

Rage gave me speed; I set off down the path like a buffalo, but it was dark, the path was greasy, my foot in its leather-soled slipper shot to the side, taking me off balance.

I did not fall, but it was close. I wrenched my knee, and when I looked back the two remaining boys were climbing over the fence, in a clap and flutter of laughter, like ugly birds taking wing.

8

St Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys

Thursday, 14th October

It was a small incident. A minor irritant, that’s all. No damage was done. And yet—There was a time when I would have caught those boys, whatever it took, and dragged them back by the ears. Not now, of course. Sunnybankers know their rights. Even so, it’s the first time in many years that my authority has been so deliberately challenged. They scent weakness. All boys do. And it was a mistake to run like that, in the dark, after what Bevans told me. It looked rushed, undignified. A student teacher’s mistake. I should have crept out into Dog Lane and caught them as they climbed over the fence. They were only boys—thirteen or fourteen, judging by their voices. Since when did Roy Straitley allow a few boys to defy him?

I brooded on that for longer than it deserved. Perhaps that was why I slept so badly; perhaps the sherry, or perhaps I was still troubled by my conversation with Bishop. In any case I awoke un-refreshed; washed, dressed, made toast, and drank a mug of tea as I waited for the postman. Sure enough, at seven-thirty, the letter box clattered, and sure enough, there was the typed sheet on St. Oswald’s notepaper, signed E. Gray, Headmaster, B.A. (Hons), and Dr. B. D. Pooley, Chairman of Govs, the duplicate of which (it said) would be inserted into my personal record for a period of 12 (twelve) months, after which time it would be removed from file, on condition that no further complaint(s) had been lodged and at the discretion of the governing body, blah, blah, blah-dy bloody blah.

On a normal day, it would not have concerned me. Fatigue, however, made me vulnerable, and it was without enthusiasm—and a knee that still ached from the evening’s misadventure—that I set off on foot to St. Oswald’s. Without quite knowing why, I made a short detour into Dog Lane, perhaps to check for signs of last night’s intruders.

It was then that I saw it. I could hardly have missed it; a swastika, sketched onto the side of the fence in red marker pen, with the word HITLER below it in exuberant letters. It was recent, then; almost certainly the work of last night’s Sunnybankers—if, indeed, they were Sunnybankers. But I had not forgotten the caricature tacked up onto the form notice board; the cartoon of myself as a fat little mortar-boarded Nazi, and my conviction at the time that Knight was behind it.

Could Knight have found out where I lived? It wouldn’t be hard; my phone number is in the school handbook, and dozens of boys must have seen me walking home. All the same I couldn’t believe that Knight—Knight, of all people—would dare to do something like this.

Teaching’s a game of bluff, of course; but it would take a better player than Knight to check me. No, it had to be a coincidence, I thought; some marker-happy Sunnybank Parker slouching home to his fish-and-chips, who saw my nice clean fence and hated its unblemished surface.

At the weekend, I’ll sand and repaint it with wipe-clean gloss. It needed doing anyway, and as any teacher knows, one piece of graffiti invites another. But I couldn’t help feeling, as I walked to St. Oswald’s, that all the unpleasantness of the past few weeks—Fallowgate, the Examiner campaign, last night’s intrusion, Anderton-Pullitt’s ridiculous peanut, even the Headmaster’s prim little letter of this morning—were somehow—obscurely, irrationally, deliberately—related.

Schools, like ships, are riddled with superstitions, and St. Oswald’s more than most. The ghosts, perhaps; or the rituals and traditions that keep the old wheels creaking away. But this term has given us nothing but bad luck right from the beginning. There’s a Jonah on board. If only I knew who it was.

When I entered the Common Room this morning, I found it suspiciously quiet. Word of my warning must have got around, because conversations fell silent throughout the day every time I entered a room, and there was a certain gleam in Sourgrape’s eye that boded ill for someone.

The Nations avoided me; Grachvogel looked furtive; Scoones was at his most aloof; and even Pearman seemed most unlike his cheery self. Kitty too looked especially preoccupied—she barely acknowledged my greeting as I came in, and it bothered me rather; Kitty and I have always been chums, and I hoped nothing had happened to change that. I didn’t think it had—after all, the little upsets of the past week hadn’t touched her—but there was definitely something in her face as she looked up and saw me. I sat beside her with my tea (the vanished Jubilee mug having been replaced by a plain brown one from home), but she seemed engrossed in her pile of books and hardly said a word.

Lunch was a mournful affair of vegetables—thanks to the vindictive Bevans—followed by a sugarless cup of tea. I took the cup with me to room fifty-nine, though most of the boys were outside, except for Anderton-Pullitt, happily engrossed in his airplane book, and Waters, Pink, and Lemon, who were quietly playing cards in one corner.

I had been marking for about ten minutes when I looked up and saw the rabbit Meek, standing beside the desk with a pink slip in his hand and a look of mingled hate and deference in his pale, bearded face.

“I got this slip this morning, sir,” he said, holding out the piece of paper. He has never forgiven me for my intervention in his lesson, or for the fact that I witnessed his humiliation in front of the boys. As a result he addresses me as “sir,” like a pupil, and his tone is flat and colorless, like Knight’s.

“What is it?”

“Assessment form, sir.”

“Oh, gods. I’d forgotten.” Of course, the staff appraisals are upon us; heaven forbid that we should fail to complete all the necessary paperwork before December’s official inspection. I supposed I had one too; the New Head has always been a great fan of internal appraisal—as introduced by Bob Strange, who also wants more in-service training, yearly management courses, and performance-related pay. Can’t see it myself—your results are only as good as the boys you teach, after all—but it keeps Bob out of the classroom, which is the essential.

The general principle of appraisal is simple; each junior member of staff is individually observed and appraised in the classroom by a senior master; each Head of Section by a Head of Year; each Head of Year by a Deputy, that is, Pat Bishop or Bob Strange. The Second and Third Masters are assessed by the Head himself (though in Strange’s case, he spends so little time in the classroom that you wonder why he bothers). The Head, being a geographer, does hardly any teaching at all but spends much of his time on courses, lecturing teams of PGCE students on racial sensitivity or drug awareness.

“It says you’ll be observing my lesson this afternoon,” said Meek. He didn’t look too pleased about it. “Third-form computer studies.”

“Thank you, Mr. Meek.” I wondered which joker had decided to put me in charge of computer studies. As if I didn’t know. And with Meek, of all people. Oh well, I thought. Bang goes my free period.

There are some days in a teaching career where everything goes wrong. I should know; I’ve seen a few—days where the only sensible thing to do is to go home and go back to bed. Today was one of them; an absurd parade of mishaps and annoyances, of litter and lost books and minor scuffles and unwelcome administrative tasks and extra duties and louche comments in the corridors.

A run-in with Eric Scoones over some misbehavior of Sutcliff’s; my register (still missing and causing trouble with Marlene); wind (never welcome); a leak in the boys’ toilets and the subsequent flooding of part of the Middle Corridor; Knight (unaccountably smug); Dr. Devine (equally so); a number of annoying room changes due to the leak and e-mailed (ye gods!) to all staff workstations, with the result that I arrived late to my morning cover period—English, for the absent Roach.

There are many advantages to being a senior master. One is that having established a reputation as a disciplinarian, it is rarely necessary to enforce it. Word gets round—Don’t mess with Straitley—and a quiet life for all ensues. Today was different. Oh, it happens occasionally; and if it had happened on any other day I might not have reacted as I did then. But it was a large group, a lower third—thirty-five boys, and not a single Latinist among them. They knew me only by reputation—and I don’t suppose the recent article in our local press had helped much.

I was ten minutes late, and the class was already noisy. No work had been set, and as I walked in, expecting the boys to stand in silence, they simply glanced in my direction and went right on doing precisely what they’d been doing before. Games of cards; conversations; a rowdy discussion at the back with chairs kicked over and a powerful stench of chewing gum in the air.

It shouldn’t have angered me. A good teacher knows that there is fake anger and real anger—the fake is fair game, part of the good teacher’s armory of bluff; but the real must be hidden at all costs, lest the boys—those master manipulators—understand that they have scored a point.

But I was tired. The day had started badly, the boys didn’t know me, and I was still angry over the incident in my back garden the night before. Those high young voices—like fuck he can, he’s too old!—had sounded too familiar, too plausible to be easily dismissed. One boy looked up at me and turned to his desk mate, sniggering. I thought I heard the phrase—nuts to you, sir!—amidst a clap of ugly laughter.

And so I fell—like a novice, like a student teacher—for the oldest trick in the book. I lost my temper.

“Gentlemen, silence.” It usually works. This time it didn’t; I could see a group of boys at the back laughing openly at the battered gown I had omitted to remove following my midmorning break duty. Nuts to you, sir, I heard (or thought), and it seemed to me that if anything, the volume increased.

“I said silence!” I roared—an impressive sound in usual circumstances, but I’d forgotten Bevans and his advice to take it easy, and the invisible finger prodded me midroar in the sternum. The boys at the back sniggered, and irrationally I wondered if any of them had been there last night—think you can take me, you fat bastard?

Well, in such a situation there are inevitably casualties. In this case, eight in lunchtime detention, which was perhaps a trifle excessive, but a teacher’s discipline is his own, after all, and there was no reason for Strange to intervene. He did, however; walking past the room at just the wrong time, he happened to hear my voice and looked through the glass at precisely the moment that I turned one of the sniggering boys around by the sleeve of his blazer.

“Mr. Straitley!” Of course nowadays, no one touches a pupil.

Silence fell; the boy’s sleeve was torn at the armpit. “You saw him, sir. He hit me.”

They knew he hadn’t. Even Strange knew, though his face was impassive. The invisible finger gave another push. The boy—Pooley, his name was—held up his torn blazer for inspection. “That was brand-new!”

It wasn’t; anyone could see that. The fabric was shiny with age; the sleeve itself a little short. Last year’s blazer, due for replacement. But I’d gone too far; I could see it now. “Perhaps you can tell Mr. Strange all about it,” I suggested, turning back to the now-silent class.

The Third Master gave me a reptilian look.

“Oh, and when you’ve finished with Mr. Pooley, do please send him back,” I said. “I need to arrange his detention.”

There was nothing for Strange to do then but to leave, taking Pooley with him. I don’t suppose he enjoyed being dismissed by a colleague—but then, he shouldn’t have interfered, should he? Still, I had a feeling he would not let the matter go. It was too good an opportunity—and, as I recalled (though a little late), young Pooley was the eldest son of Dr. B. D. Pooley, Chairman of Governors, whose name I had most recently encountered on a formal written warning.

Well after that I was so rattled that I went to the wrong room for Meek’s appraisal and arrived twenty minutes into the lesson. Everyone turned round to look at me, Meek excepted; his pallid face wooden with disapproval.

I sat down at the back; someone had set out a chair for me, with the pink appraisal form on it. I scanned the sheet. It was the usual box-ticking format: planning, delivery, stimulus, enthusiasm, class control. Marks out of five, plus a space for a comment, like a hotel questionnaire.

I wondered what sort of an opinion I was supposed to have; still, the class was quiet, barring a couple of nudgers at the back; Meek’s voice was reedy and penetrating; the computer screens behaved themselves, creating the migraine-inducing patterns that apparently constituted the object of the exercise. All in all, satisfactory enough, I supposed; smiled encouragingly at the hapless Meek; left early in the hope of a quick cup of tea before the start of the next period; and stuck the pink slip into the Third Master’s pigeonhole.

As I did, I noticed something lying on the floor at my feet. It was a little notebook, pocket-sized, bound in red. Opening it briefly I saw it half-filled with spindly writing; on the flyleaf I read the name C. KEANE.

Ah, Keane. I looked around the Common Room, but the new English teacher was not there. And so I pocketed the notebook, meaning to give it back to Keane later. Rather a mistake, or so it turned out. Still, you know what they say about listening at doors.

Every teacher keeps them. Notes on boys; notes of lists and duties; notes of grudges small and large. You can tell almost as much about a colleague by his notebook as by his mug—Grachvogel’s is a neat and color-coded plea for order; Kitty’s a no-nonsense pocket diary; Devine’s an impressive black tome with little inside. Scoones uses the same green accounts books he has been using since 1961; the Nations have charity planners from Christian Aid; Pearman a stack of odd papers, Post-it notes, and used envelopes.

Now, having opened the thing, I couldn’t resist a glance at young Keane’s notebook; and by the time I realized that I shouldn’t be reading it, I was hooked, lined, and sinkered.

Of course I already knew the man was a writer. He has that look; the slight complacency of the casual observer, content to enjoy the view because he knows he won’t be staying long. What I hadn’t guessed was how much he’d already seen; the tiffs, the rivalries, the little secrets of the Common Room dynamic. There were pages of it; closely written in handwriting so small that it was scarcely legible; character studies, sketches, overheard remarks, gossip, history, news.

I scanned the pages, straining my eyes to decipher the minuscule script. Fallowgate was mentioned; and Peanuts, and Favorites. There was a little of our school history—I saw the names Snyde, Pinchbeck, and Mitchell alongside a folded newspaper cutting of that sad old tale. Next to that, a photocopied snippet from a St. Oswald’s official school photograph, a color snapshot of another school’s Sports Day—boys and girls sitting cross-legged on the grass—and a bad portrait of John Snyde, looking criminal, as most men do when seen from the front page of a newspaper.

Several more pages, I saw, were given over to cartoons, caricatures for the most part. Here was the Head, rigid and glacial, the Don Quixote to Bishop’s Sancho. There was Bob Strange, a hybrid half-human wired into his computer terminal. My own Anderton-Pullitt was there in goggles and flying helmet; Knight’s schoolboy crush on a new teacher was mercilessly exposed; Miss Dare portrayed as a bespectacled, bestockinged schoolmarm with Scoones as her growling rottweiler. Even I was included, hunchbacked and black-robed, swinging from the Bell Tower with Kitty, a plumpish Esmerelda, under my arm.

That made me smile; but there was some unease in it too. I suppose I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Kitty Teague. All aboveboard, of course, you know—I just never realized it was so damned obvious. I wondered too whether Kitty had seen it.

Damn the man; I thought to myself. Hadn’t I known from the first that he was an upstart? And yet I’d liked him. Like him still, if truth be told.

R. Straitley: Latin. Devoted Old Boy of St. Oswald’s. Sixties; smoker; overweight; cuts his own hair. Wears the same brown tweed jacket with the elbow patches every day (well, that‘s a lie, smarty-pants; I wear a blue suit to Speech Days and funerals); hobbies include baiting the management and flirting with the French teacher. Boys hold him in unexpected affection (you’re forgetting Colin Knight); albatross around B. Strange’s neck. Harmless.

Well, I like that. Harmless, forsooth!

Still, it could be worse; under Penny Nation’s entry I read Poisonous do-gooder, and under Isabelle Tapi, French tart. You can’t deny the man has a turn of phrase. I would have read on; but at that moment the bell for registration went, and I put it in my desk drawer, with some reluctance, hoping to finish it at leisure.

I never did. Returning to my desk at the end of school I found the drawer empty and the notebook gone; at the time I assumed that Keane, who, like Dianne, occasionally shares my room, had found it and taken it back. I never asked him, for obvious reasons; and it was only later, when the scandals began to erupt one after the other, that I thought to make the connection between that little red notebook and the ubiquitous Mole, who knew the school so well, and who seemed to have so many insights into our harmless little ways.

9

Friday, 15th October

Another successful week, I think. Not least was my retrieval of that notebook, with its incriminating contents. I believe Straitley may have read some of it, though probably not all. The handwriting is too spindly for his old eyes, and besides, if he had drawn any suspicious conclusions, I would have seen it in his manner before now. Still, it would have been unwise to keep the book. I see that; and I burnt the offending item—not without a pang—before it could fall under hostile scrutiny. I may yet have to revisit the problem—but not today. Today I have other concerns to attend to.

The October half-term is upon us already, and I mean to be very busy (I’m not just talking about marking books). No, this week I shall be in school almost every day. I have cleared it with Pat Bishop, who also finds it hard to keep away, and with Mr. Beard, the Head of IT, with whom I have an unofficial arrangement.

All perfectly innocent and aboveboard—after all, my interest in technology is nothing new, and I know from experience that I am best hidden when I am in the open. Bishop approves, of course; he doesn’t really know much about computers but supervises me in his avuncular way, popping out of his office every once in a while to see if I need help.

I am not a brilliant student. A couple of elementary faux pas have established me as willing, if not especially able, which allows Bishop to feel superior whilst giving me extra cover, should I ever need it. I doubt I shall; if my presence is ever questioned at a later date, I know I can rely on Pat to say that I simply didn’t have the expertise.

Every member of St. Oswald’s staff has an e-mail address. This consists of their first two or three initials followed by the address of the school Web site. In theory, every member of staff should check his e-mail twice a day, in case of an urgent memo from Bob Strange, but in practice, some never do. Roy Straitley and Eric Scoones are among these; many more use the system but have neglected to personalize their mailboxes and have kept the default password (PASSWORD) to access their mail. Even the ones, like Bishop, who imagine themselves to be more computer literate are predictable enough: Bishop himself uses the name of his favorite sportsman, and even Strange, who should know better, has a series of easy-to-guess codes (his wife’s maiden name, his date of birth, and so on).

Not that I ever had to do much guessing. Fallow, who used the facilities every night, kept a list of user codes in a notebook in the Porter’s Lodge, along with a box of disks (material downloaded from the Internet) that no one had bothered to investigate. By retracing his steps (under a different user identity), I managed to lay quite a convincing trail. Better still, by disabling the firewall on the school’s computer network for a few minutes, and then sending a carefully prepared file attachment to admin@saintoswalds.com, from one of my Hotmail addresses, I was able to introduce a simple virus designed to lie dormant in the system before awakening into dramatic action a couple of weeks later.

Not the most exciting kind of spadework, I know. All the same, I enjoyed it. This evening I thought I might allow myself a little celebration; a night off, a couple of drinks at the Thirsty Scholar. That turned out to be a mistake; I hadn’t realized how many colleagues—and pupils—frequented the place. I was only halfway through my first drink when I saw a little group of them come in—I recognized Jeff Light, Gerry Grachvogel, and Robbie Roach, the long-haired geographer, with a couple of seventeen-or eighteen-year-olds who might have been St. Oswald’s sixth-formers.

I shouldn’t have been surprised—it’s no secret that Roach likes to hang out with the boys. Light too. Grachvogel, on the other hand, looked slightly furtive, but then he always does, and he at least has the sense to know (as Straitley puts it) that no good ever comes of getting overfriendly with the troops.

I was tempted to stay. There was no reason to be shy; but the thought of socializing with them, of letting my hair down, as the ghastly Light would have put it, and having a couple of bevvies, was distinctly unpleasant. Thankfully, I was sitting by the door and was able to make my exit, quick and unobserved, as they made their way toward the bar.

I recognized Light’s car, a black Probe, in the alley beside the pub, and toyed with the idea of putting its side window through; but there might be security cameras in the street, I thought, and it would be pointless to risk exposure on a stupid whim. Instead I walked the long way home—the night was mild, and besides, I’d promised myself another look at Roy Straitley’s fence.

He had already removed the graffiti. I wasn’t surprised; even though he couldn’t actually see it from his house, its simple presence must have irked him, just as it irked him that the boys who had invaded his garden might return. Perhaps I’ll arrange it—just to see his face—but not tonight. Tonight I deserve better.

And so I went home to my chintz-hung room, opened my second bottle of champagne (I have a case of six, and I mean to see them all empty by Christmas), caught up with a little essential correspondence, then went down to the pay phone outside and made a quick call to the local police, reporting a black Probe (registration LIT 3) driving erratically in the vicinity of the Thirsty Scholar.

It’s the sort of behavior my therapist tends to discourage nowadays. I’m too impulsive, or so she says; too judgmental. I don’t always consider the feelings of others as I should. But there was no risk to me; I did not give my name, and in any case—you know he deserved it. Like Mr. Bray, Light is a braggart; a bully; a natural rule-breaker; a man who genuinely believes that a few pints under his belt make him a better driver. Predictable. They’re all so predictable.

That’s their weakness. The Oswaldians. Light, of course, is a complacent fool; but even Straitley, who is not, shares the same foolish complacency. Who would dare to attack me? To attack St. Oswald’s?

Well, gentlemen. I would.