Sunday Best (26 page)

You may remember that there was trouble with Mr Parsons at the school. You may remember also that I defended him. I knew then I would have to pay for it, and indeed I did, for the poor devil was found murdered a few days later, and I, for a variety of reasons which I don't want to go into now, I, George Verrey Smith, was suspect number one.

Mr Parsons had met a particularly horrible death behind the maintenance shed, a location which was apparently his second home. He had just besported himself with Washington Jones, one of our coloured quota from the lower third, and the latter, five bob the richer, was just leaving the shed when he heard Parsons talking to a man, and both voices were raised. Washington, being a healthy curious lad, peeped round the wall of the shed, and overheard and saw what took place. And thank God for Washington, or I would now be languishing in a cell awaiting punishment, instead of getting all this off my chest, though I know from experience that it will not make me
feel any better. Anyway, it was Washington's evidence that saved my neck, and out of respect for him, I give it to you in his own words.

‘Me and Mister Parsons was doing 'omework, m'lud, be'ind the shed. Then when we was finished, I went round the corner, an' I 'eard Mister Chippie – that's 'im over there in the box – an' 'e was shouting at Mister Parsons, an' 'e was ‘olding a knife. They was talking very loud, an' 'im over there, 'e said that the money were due, an' 'e 'adn't been paid for two months, and 'e'd 'ad 'is last chance. An' Mister Parsons, 'e said 'e wasn't gonna pay no more, never, 'e said, 'cos 'e'd been found out anyway, and 'e could say wot 'e liked to anybody, 'e wasn't gettin' another penny. Then I saw Mister Chippie put the knife in 'is stomach an' in 'is back. An' then Mister Parsons fell down an' Mister Chippie undone Mister Parsons's trousers, an' then – well, you know wot 'e done. Then I screamed. I couldn't 'elp it, an' Mister Chippie saw me, an' I ran, an' 'e came after me, but 'e couldn't catch me 'cos 'e's too fat. And then one day after school, 'e was waiting, an' I didn't see 'im, an' 'e got me an' 'e took me in a car. We was in the country somewhere, an' when we got out, I ran away, an' 'e followed an' 'e fell down. That's why 'e's got 'is leg in plaster. No, m'lud. We was only doin' 'omework. Mister Parsons always 'elped some of the boys after school.'

Washington was a great one for the euphemism. He probably learned more about life behind that maintenance shed than through Mr Parsons's orthodox teaching practices. For though it is not done to speak ill of the dead, between you and me, Mr Parsons was a rotten teacher. He told me himself he only did it for the connections. Now I understand what he meant. Poor devil.

Of course, while I was under suspicion, the Cloth thought it advisable for me to absent myself from the school until the whole business was cleared up. Which I did. It took a few weeks in all, and I was out of countenance most of the time. When it was all over, insofar as this sort of business can ever be over – once cited, suspicion lingers, no matter how innocent the accused – the Cloth called on me to resume my duties. I was hesitant. Something had happened during my indisposition that prompted a certainty in me that things could not go on as before. A radical change had to come about,
and a change of job and even location would perhaps be a beginning. So I hesitated. The Cloth begged me to return.

A likely story, you are probably thinking. Hardly possible, you would assume, that after all my philanderings, the Cloth would want me back. He might ask, certainly, as a mere formality, hoping to God I would refuse of my own accord. But beg? Out of the question. Well, you can believe what you like. This is my confession and I can do what I like with it. He begged. Believe it or not, he begged.

I rather liked that, the Cloth begging. Even Miss Price, who in my absence had come to value my services, urged me, on her own behalf, to return to their merry band, There they both were, practically on their knees. I let them go on for a bit, but not too long, because in supplication, unless absolutely certain of one's cause, there comes a moment of gross humiliation, and the cause itself is then in rage, discounted. I saw Miss Price's lower lip tremble, and I took that as a sign to assert the rightness of their plea. ‘I am honoured that you should value me so highly,' I said, and they trembled, hope bursting their seams.

‘Then you will return?' the Cloth said meekly.

I smiled at him.

‘I knew you would,' he said. He actually put his hand on my arm. I let it lie there for a while, smiling still. Then I took it up with the tips of my fingers, and dropped it off, like an earwig.

‘You know where you can stick your lousy job,' I said. ‘And fuck you, too, Miss Price,' I added. ‘You should be so lucky.'

I walked out of the Cloth's study. After the manner of my departure, I couldn't hope for a reference from him, and I knew better than to ask. I had won the game as long as I was prepared not to prolong it. So I left in the ascendant, albeit without testimonial, but every second of that interview had been worthwhile.

Now I know you're possibly thinking that I have tailored this whole story to suit my own vanity. Well, you may take my word for it. It was I who gave the Cloth the boot. For what other reason would he have refused me a reference? And moreover, it didn't turn out to be such a handicap. I have since learned, that dotted all over the English countryside, skulking behind the stained glass of erstwhile stately homes, there lies many a teaching establishment, where a testimonial from an orthodox school is positively an impediment.
They are run, in the main, by unfrocked headmasters and staffs with histories similar to my own. Many of them look uncommonly like the late Mr Parsons. All have, in their time, taught within the confines of the establishment, but all have felt that establishment as a prison, and an obstacle to imaginative teaching. So they group together to pursue a rather less orthodox teaching method, and in my new school, you can take my word for it, there is much of that. But I am content enough here. My wife, too, has taken happily to the countryside, and there are enough good works to occupy her, including, I may add, the collection of signatures of those who wish to close down my school. Sometimes I give a thought to poor Chippie and the bars that he must contemplate for a quarter of a century. Sometimes I think of Tommy but with little affection. He told my wife everything when I was out of countenance, but I've cleared all that up now. I rarely give a thought to Mrs Johnson, and if I do, it is with pity. I have cleared out my mind considerably since my indisposition. I have gone into the corners and the crevices, and fumigated all. I have come to know myself a little, not in any positive sense, perhaps. But there is also some wisdom in knowing what one is not. For a moment, during my confession to you, I thought I had traced some outline of identity. I recall a distinct euphoria at the time. But in the end, it was too frail to sustain itself. Now, in my own unsure frame of George Verrey Smith, age, er, forty-two, by profession a schoolmaster, with no longer any confidence in my teeth, I know, and this my confession has taught me – I know that I am neither man nor woman. I say it aloud. I am neither man nor woman, and the absence of an echo confirms its truth. I write it down. I am neither man nor woman, and it is but the signature to the declaration of my own limbo. That is all.

Then what am I? Yes, I have cleared out my mind, but I must confess, after all this confession, that there still remains a millstone, central, whole, solid and immovable. My father lodges in my skull, a stubborn sitting-tenant. I have confessed to his murder. I have made excuses, I have lied, but in the end, and between the lines, you have prised out my ignominy. I am a murderer. I stand before you like a time-honoured alcoholic seeking the cure. I confess it publicly, that which I really am.

Shall I tell the priest? He will tell me perhaps to go to the police. And I will go to the station and say, ‘Excuse me, Officer,
but just over thirty years ago, I killed my father.' And he, reckoning my years, will humour me. So I have chosen to confess it to you, you, whom I do not know, and cannot envisage, and from you, there is no come-back. That is the hardest confession of all. It is the kind of confession that is not good for the soul. From such confession there is no pay-off, no orgasm of punishment. Yet punishment is essential for what I have learned myself to be. And since there is no one to administer it, I must organize my own retribution.

I have put away my Sundays. The pain of such a loss is punishment enough, believe me. But I have had to do it, for my Sundays were an escape route, and I must face what I am, for ever, and without let-up. I have given them all away, even my wig, for they interfered with my obsession, with my blemish, with my stain. I am a murderer. My father stiffens in my skull, like a corpse awaiting post-mortem, and I cannot bury him until the coroner is satisfied. He died, I know, because I wished him dead. The trip wire was only incidental. It was my studied and persistent will that killed him, and in what part of bis body could be found proof of that, and in any case, what coroner in the land would sanction it? So he lies stinking out of my head, and I know that in the end, he will outlive me. His fulsome stench will flush me out of my own frame.

Sometimes I am sorry that I gave away my Sundays. I would have liked to look at them, just to look, from time to time. Perhaps one day, when Joy is out, I'll have a tiny try-on, just a little one. Of course, I wouldn't go out in them, ever ever again. Unless of course it was very dark, and I could cross the fields unseen. Even as I think about it, and write it down, my thoughts are creeping towards her wardrobe.

But why should I tell you all this? I have told you enough, more than you ever needed to know, and certainly more than was good for me. I'm leaving you now, which is the only way I can get rid of you. I am going. That was true what I said about my Sundays. I promise you they're over and done with. Not even a little look. Not even a tiny try-on. Not even a …

I'm going now. I've got to. Don't try and stop me. There are things I have to do.

Bernice Rubens
was born in Cardiff, Wales in July 1928. She read English at the University of Wales and married young; she worked as an English teacher and a filmmaker before she began writing at the age of 35, when her children started nursery school. Reubens's first novel,
Set on Edge
(1960), was threaded with the themes of Orthodox Judaism and family life. The book was a success, which encouraged her to continue with writing: her second novel,
Madame Sousatzka
(1962), was filmed by John Schlesinger, with Shirley MacLaine in the leading role, in 1988, and her fourth novel,
The Elected Member
, won the 1970 Booker prize. She was shortlisted for the same prize again in 1978 for
A Five Year Sentence
.
Reubens was an honorary vice-president of International PEN and served as a Booker judge in 1986; her last novel,
The Sergeants' Tale
, was published in 2003, a year before her death at age 76.

Discover books by Bernice Rubens published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/BerniceRubens
A Five Year Sentance
Madame Sousatzka
Nine Lives
Sunday Best

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This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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First published in Great Britain 1971 by Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd
Copyright © 1971 Bernice Rubens
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eISBN: 9781448201334
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