Stories: All-New Tales

Richard Adams. THE KNIFE

ALL THAT IS NARRATED IN THIS STORY took place in 1938.

It was not until Philip actually saw the knife lying in the bushes that his life changed its nature, as it were, from a fantasy to a frightening possibility. He stopped, turned his head for a glance and then took a couple of steps back, stared and remained staring, as though he needed to make sure that the knife was real.

Yes, it was real all right. It was the only thing for some time that had been able to break through the palisade of his dismal, all-absorbing dread.

Before that, his thoughts had been dominated by his horrible apprehension, the prospect of severe physical pain, inescapable and coming soon. It was as though his mind had been running a tape again and again. For its starting point it had Stafford’s final words to him yesterday. “So I shall see you in the library after prayers tomorrow night, and you’ve got no one to thank but yourself.” Next came Stafford’s turning away and his own imprisonment, as it were, within those words, surrounding him like the bars of a cage. And then the intervening time; and so back to Stafford’s words.

Ever since the beginning of this term and Stafford’s appointment as head prefect of the house, he had become-not only in his own eyes, but in everyone else’s-Stafford’s principal victim. “Stafford doesn’t like you, does he?” Jones had said. “And can you blame him?” added Brown, at which both of them had roared with laughter.

All through the term his offences had accumulated, earning themselves on the way a whole series of petty punishments, which had climaxed last week in his being beaten by Stafford in the house library. The pain had been severe-the worst he had ever undergone-and now it was apparently going to be repeated.

Last night he had hardly slept. He couldn’t eat breakfast and could hardly eat lunch. Jones and Brown were the only people he had told.

And now here he was, trudging though the wet woods alone on a half-holiday afternoon. And now, here was the knife. It burst in upon his thoughts, which surrendered and came to a stop.

It was very like the knives he had seen on television, the knives which scores of people had handed in to the police as the result of a public appeal.

He stooped and picked it up. It was a good foot long in its fancy sheath and it had a very sharp point. And now, straight on cue, came the fantasy.

The knife had been sent to him by a mysterious Power, and he was under orders to use it. He was always entertaining fantasies. There was no end to them: revenge fantasies, sexual fantasies, supreme-power fantasies. To a considerable extent, he lived in solitude with his fantasies.

Under orders to use it. When and where? “My lord, I shall use it in the middle of the night, and no one will be able to tell”-He broke off. Deliberately changed his thoughts. However, the first thoughts returned. But of course he wasn’t really going to use it, was he?

If he did, what would happen then? For once he couldn’t imagine. However, one thing was clear. There would be a tremendous row; the most tremendous row ever. But suppose no one could tell it was him?

He wouldn’t be beaten again, would he? The beating would be swallowed up in the awful row. Everything would change. Yes, that was the real point. Everything would change, including his life.

No one knew he had a knife. And no one would want to claim it after he’d used it as he meant to. Before house prayers that evening he had thought out exactly what he was going to do.

Going upstairs to bed he was so much preoccupied that he stumbled into someone without noticing who. “Oh, damn you, Jevons, why can’t you look where you’re going?” “Sorry, er-sorry, er-”

Most of the senior boys had single rooms. He had had one now for two terms. That night after lights out he lay silently in the dark, willing himself to keep awake.

But he fell asleep. When he woke it was two in the morning by his watch. Last chance to say no. But yes, he was still determined to do it. What had he to lose?

Got the knife? Got the torch? Got someone else’s bath towel he’d pinched from the changing room? He opened the door of his room, stepped into the passage and stood listening. Not a sound anywhere. It wasn’t far to the door of Stafford’s room (mind, no fingerprints).

And now he was standing beside Stafford’s bed, listening to his steady breathing as he lay on his back. He turned on the torch, shone it on Stafford’s throat and all in one movement plunged in the knife. The point was so sharp that he hardly felt it pierce. He let go of the hilt and all in one movement spread the towel over throat, knife and all, ran back to his room, shut the torch in a drawer and got back into bed.

All this he remembered clearly. And the aftermath? Well, the tremendous row. The shock throughout the school. The shock throughout the country. The newspapers, the headmaster, the police, the fingerprinting. (To what purpose? He had readily given his own.)

Apparently, no one had told the police that he was a boy on the wrong side of Stafford. So many boys were.

His parents had not been hard to persuade when he had asked them if he could leave at the end of the term.

I’M HIS GODFATHER, AND I’ve always kept up a friendly interest in him. We’ve been close friends for many years.

One night last week, after he’d come to dinner with me, he told me everything and said that he’d often had a mind to give himself up. I’ve told him to dismiss that notion altogether and assured him that his secret is entirely safe with me. I wouldn’t let on to a living soul.

Well, would you?