Saville (23 page)

More books were given out. Names and subject-matter and the class were inscribed on the covers. The bell sounded once again.

‘The bell is for my benefit, not yours,’ Hodges said as several heads turned round. ‘You’ve fifteen minutes’ break, to be spent in the field behind the school and not, I might remind you, on the steps. No one stays inside. Milk, for those who take it, will be found in the cloisters beneath the school. When you’ve drunk it, straight into the field.’

They were dismissed in rows.

The cloisters comprised a row of filled-in arches facing on to the field at the back of the school. The central arch stood open: it was here the milk was stacked. Crowds of boys milled round in the yard outside. Inside, within the darkness of the building, he made out several doors and the flickering, intermittent glow of boilers.

‘So you got here after all, then,’ someone said.

He turned from the crates and saw a fair-haired figure leaning up against the cloister wall drinking from a bottle.

‘What form are you in, then?’ Stafford said.

‘Three A.’

‘Three Upper.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Across the corridor from you.’

Stafford smiled.

‘How do you like it, then?’ he added.

‘All right.’

‘You passed your exam all right?’

He nodded.

‘I failed.’

‘How did you get here, then?’ he said.

‘Paying fees.’ Stafford shrugged. But for the blazer he looked no different. A silver-coloured pen was clipped to his pocket.

‘What’s the difference between Three A and Three Upper?’ he said.

‘I think we do Greek, as well as Latin,’ Stafford said. ‘You just do Latin.’ He smiled again. ‘Finished your milk? We can go into the field,’ he added.

They walked up and down.

‘Have they ducked you in the toilets?’ Stafford said.

‘No.’ He shook his head.

‘I don’t believe they do. It’s one of the things they tell you, but it never happens. I know three people who started here last year and all three of them say it never happens.’

Groups of boys ran past. One took hold of him a moment, spun him round, shouted to someone behind, then, still shouting, ran quickly on. Air-raid shelters, like low, windowless houses, lined one side of the field. Metal railings, set on a low brick wall, cut off the end of the field from a road beyond. To one side of the field stood a yellow brick house.

‘That’s where Trudger lives. And one or two boarders,’ Stafford said. Its large window looked down directly to the field. ‘He’s not supposed to be keen on teaching,’ Stafford added.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. They say when he canes anybody he begins to cry.’

Colin looked at the house. He could see a figure standing at a window, but from this distance it was impossible to see whether it was a man or a woman.

‘He’s got two daughters who’re worth looking at,’ Stafford added.

A bell rang. The games of football were broken up. The crowd of dark-blazered figures turned back towards the school.

‘Staying for lunch, then?’ Stafford said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘See you later, then.’

Stafford slapped his back and ran off, calling someone’s name, towards the steps.

The day passed slowly. He didn’t see Stafford at lunch. They ate in a narrow room converted from one half of the cloisters, rows of tables and wooden benches set out behind the windowed arches. Afterwards, in the field, he saw Connors playing football, jogging up and down, the tail of his shirt hanging out beneath his jacket. For a while he stood with several other boys at the edge of the field, avoiding going to the toilets as long as he could. Finally, when he went there he found them empty. There were the usual cubicles and a row of basins, but going by their colour they could never have been used.

The afternoon, like the morning, was divided into two. Lessons started. Hodges, deliberately or otherwise, had forgotten about the tables; he’d forgotten about the hymn as well. After dismissing them for lunch they only saw him briefly at the beginning of the afternoon when he came into the room to mark the register and to announce that lessons were to start forthwith. ‘Mr Platt, who is coming in shortly to take your English, makes me, gentlemen, sound like a veritable angel. I should pay the utmost heed to everything he says, and woe betide any boy who doesn’t do immediately everything he tells you.’

He went out quickly with a swirl of his gown, removing his glasses and brushing his hand across his head.

For a while the room was silent. Then one or two voices had murmured from the front. Someone laughed; they heard a surge of voices in the corridor outside; someone called; the voices died.

The murmuring in the room began again. Throughout the morning, when they’d finished writing out their time-table in the record books, or writing their names on the fronts of the exercise books, or inside the covers of the text-books, the heads
of most of the boys had been turned towards the ceiling. Several heads were turned up now, the eyes held wide and vacant, the noses below the eyes distended, the lips below the noses moving.

A man had appeared at the back of the room. He was short and squat, with thick black hair. He wore glasses; the eyes behind them were invisible because of the reflection of the light. The lenses were thick, the features beneath the glasses heavy, the nose short like the man himself, the mouth full-lipped and broad, the jaw projecting sharply.

He waited until his presence had been acknowledged by the boys at the front. Then, in silence, he walked the length of the room, placed a pile of books on the teacher’s desk, cleared his throat, wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, then, glancing round the room, sat down.

‘My name’, he said, ‘is Mr Platt.’

He continued his inspection of the class for several seconds.

‘Your names I don’t know but quite shortly,’ he said, ‘I suppose, I shall.’

He allowed the silence to continue a little longer.

‘You’ll have been given a green-backed text-book this morning with the title
Principles of English Grammar
. I’d like you when I give the order, quietly to take that green-backed text-book out. I’d also, when I give the order, like you to take out your bluecoloured exercise book, marked “English Grammar”.’ He paused. ‘Two books, a pen, a ruler. The ink, I believe, for those without fountain-pens, is already in the ink-wells. I give the order now: take out.’

Colin remembered little of the lesson. A drowsiness, induced by the heat of the room as well as by the smell of food still coming through the hole in the floor, caused him at one point to lean his head against the wall. He felt the coolness of the wood against his cheek, and was aware of little else until a bell rang to mark the end of the lesson.

There was no play-time in the afternoon: the black-robed figure of Mr Platt went out and was replaced a few moments later by a tall, fair-haired figure in a sports-coat and flannels who introduced himself as Mr Wells. He taught French. They recited vowels. Wells had a narrow mouth; his eyes were blue, his nose
long and thin. He caused laughter round the class as he pronounced the vowels, pulling back his mouth to shape the e, elongating his face to shape the o, pouting his lips grotesquely to shape the u.

The class repeated the sounds together: they wrote down simple words. One or two stood up at Wells’s command and sounded the vowels singly: there was a suppressed air of laughter in the room of which Wells himself appeared to be unaware. He stood red-faced by the teacher’s desk almost as if he were alone, practising the sounds in front of a mirror. The lesson, like the one before it, had lasted three-quarters of an hour. A feeling of excitement crept over the room as the prospect of the bell grew near. When it actually sounded a murmur swept the class.

The lesson continued. The boys grew silent. They could hear shouts and cries from the corridor outside, the banging of doors, the shuffle of feet. Shouts came clearly from the street beyond.

Wells continued: words had been written on the board; they were copied down. Finally, looking up, the master turned his head to the noise outside.

‘Was that the bell?’ He gestured round.

‘Yes, sir,’ nearly everyone had said.

‘Homework,’ he said. ‘I take you, I believe, tomorrow morning.’

Instructions for learning certain words were given out.

Wells picked up his books; with the same absent-minded expression with which he’d entered the room he wandered out. Before he’d reached the door several boys had gone out before him.

He didn’t see Connors on the way to the stop; by the time he reached the bus he found a queue had formed. He stood for the first few miles. It was six o’clock by the time he got back home; he’d been away from the house for over ten hours.

His father came down; he sat at the table, listening, while his mother prepared his tea.

‘You’ve started work already, then?’

‘French,’ he said. He mentioned the English.

‘Have they set you homework?’

‘I’ve an hour to do tonight.’

‘Nay, tha mu’n better get started, then,’ his father said.

‘You’ll let him get his tea first.
And
have a rest,’ his mother said.

They watched him eat.

‘What are the teachers like?’ his father said.

‘They call them masters.’

‘Masters. Masters. What’re the
masters
like?’

‘They’re very strict.’

‘Nay, they’ll have to be, I suppose, to get things done.’

He took out his record book.

His father glanced through it; he flicked the pages.

‘What’re these for, then?’ he said.

‘Good work and bad work. They mark it down.’

‘I can see they believe in work,’ his father said.

‘That’s the motto. Work is pleasure.’ He pointed to the blazer.

His father laughed.

‘Sithee, not where I work, then,’ he said. ‘The one who wrote that has never been down yon.’

He read the time-table, stooping to the page.

‘Latin, I see. Chemistry. Physics. That’s a lot of work inside a week. Four mathematics. Four English.
Five
English,’ he added, running his finger across the page.

His father went to work a little later. He stood in the yard, fiddling with his saddle.

‘Thy football’s on tomorrow, then.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Give as good as you get,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ he said.

His father glanced across.

‘They’re not stuck up or ought, then, are they?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘You don’t feel out of place?’

‘No.’ He shook his head.

‘It’s a damn good school.’

‘Nay, get on,’ his mother said. ‘It’s as good as he deserves and nothing less.’

‘Aye, I suppose you’re right,’ his father said.

He set off down the yard.

‘Good luck tomorrow, if I don’t see you before I leave,’ he said.

Colin stood in the yard and watched him go. He went up to his room a little later. He sat on the bed, pronouncing vowels, learning the list of words the master had set.

His mother came up at the end of an hour.

‘Nay, love, you ought to be getting in. It’s after your bed-time, you know, already.’

‘I haven’t learnt them all,’ he said.

‘Well, you’ve done as long as you should,’ she said.

‘I still haven’t learnt them, though,’ he said.

‘Well, I’ll write them a note saying you’ve learnt them long enough,’ she said.

He got ready for bed. He could see Batty and Stringer playing in the field outside. Before he got into bed he went back down.

‘You needn’t write a note,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell him myself.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll write him one. You’ve done the work, after all,’ his mother said.

‘I’ll tell him myself,’ he said. ‘You needn’t bother.’

She watched him go. He could hear her from his bedroom moving round the kitchen; he heard Steven stirring in his bed through the wall. Finally the doors were bolted, the windows shut: the sound of his mother’s feet came slowly from the stairs.

She went into Steven’s room. He heard her creak the bed as she tucked in his blanket; she opened the door of his room.

He waited; a moment later the door was closed.

The sun hadn’t set; daylight came in beneath the curtain. He fell asleep with Batty’s and Stringer’s voices still ringing in his head.

A narrow footpath wound behind the backs of several large, brick-built houses, coming out finally at the edge of a field. Other fields, hedged, swept up to a low horizon of trees and houses.

In the centre of the principal field stood a cricket pitch marked off behind a barrier of rope. A brick-built pavilion adjoined the opening of the path on to the field itself, beside it a smaller one, painted green and built of wood. It was in the second, slightly decaying structure, the base of its woodwork beginning to rot, that boys of his own age were already changing.

The two dimly lit rooms inside were crowded; at one point he found his clothes removed from a peg and finally he folded them up inside his satchel and, waiting until the others had gone, hung that on a peg already occupied inside the door.

The youngest boys had been called over to a pitch at the farthest side of the field. Two masters were standing there, one of them Platt, short and squat, and one he hadn’t seen before. He too was a small man, and slightly built; he had thin grey hair which, with a slow, hesitant gesture, he would fold across his head. His eyes were dark and moist; he nodded at the boys, checking their names with a list in his hand.

Groups of boys ran up and down on the remaining pitches; names were being called and whistles blown while, on the largest pitch of all, with tall, broad-based goal-posts painted in the school colours of dark blue and gold, boys the size of men had begun a game.

‘What boys have played rugby union before?’ Platt had said. He blew a whistle. ‘Will you pay attention’, he shouted, ‘to what’s being said.’

Colin jumped up and down. His boots were worn over at the outer edges; the football shirt itself was far too large. He’d rolled up the sleeves and tucked the bottom of the shirt between his legs. He could feel it flap out behind him when he ran.