The Heat of the Sun (6 page)

‘Depends what it is, doesn’t it?’

‘One moment,’ he said, and dipped his pen into the inkwell on the escritoire. As he wrote, a furrow appeared between his dark eyebrows; writing, I suspected, had never been easy for
him.

‘There.’ He held up his paper and blew on it. ‘I think the bulletin board in McManus Two would be best, don’t you?’

I took the paper carefully. Trouble’s handwriting was remarkably neat.

‘You like it?’ said Trouble.

‘I love it. But think! So it was Quibble and Kane. How can you prove Scranway put them up to it?’

‘You don’t think he did?’

‘He’ll deny it.’

‘To the masters? Let him! But you know and I know and Hunter the dog knows why Quibble and Kane do anything, ever. It’s time to call Scranway’s bluff.’

‘Queensberry Rules? Trouble, even I know that boxers are matched according to weight. And you’re tiny.’

‘So I’ll train. We’ve got three weeks.’

‘We?’ I said.

‘It’s a duel. I’ll need a second.’

I laughed, but Trouble was in earnest. Solemnly then, I looked into his strange eyes, spat into my palm, and gripped his hand. I hated Blaze Academy: I hated all that it stood for. To champion
Trouble would be to strike a blow against it. A blow for freedom. The boy in the next bed twisted, crying out faintly. Fever glistened on his forehead.

As I left, I asked Trouble: ‘How did you know that song, anyway? The one in class.’

‘Oh, Mama took me to the play once. Boring as all hell it was, but I liked the song and learned it. Funny, isn’t it?
Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to
dust
... Why must they? Didn’t us golden lads have any other career options in those days?’

‘Mr Gregg says it’s not about children going up chimneys. A chimney-sweeper was a name for a dandelion – blow on it, and it’s gone. And it’s
as
for
like
. Golden lads,
like
dandelions, end up as dust.’

‘Don’t we all?’ said Trouble. ‘Even Eddie Scranway.’

‘It’s a prank, it has to be!’

‘Talk about a massacre! Imagine it.’

‘Did Trouble even write it? I can’t believe it.’

‘Three years younger, six years smaller!’

‘He’s in the infirmary. Who put up this notice?’

That evening, fellows clustered excitedly by the bulletin board in McManus II.

‘Say, where’s Scranway? Has he seen this?’

As if in answer, the door swung open and Scranway entered with Hunter loping behind. The fellows fell silent; nervously, some shuffled away from the bulletin board.

Scranway, taking in the situation at once, ripped the challenge from the wall. If I thought his face would change as he read it, I was wrong. Around us, voices sounded again, rising into a
clamour:

‘You’ll wipe the floor with him, Scranway.’

‘Trouble’s crazy. You’ll show him, Scranway.’

‘Roll up, roll up for the fight of the century!’

Scranway held up a hand and silence fell. He crushed the paper into a ball. He tossed it into the air and caught it. He dropped it, kicked it like a football.

‘Whoever posted that,’ he said, ‘can tell Trouble I’m calling his bluff. He wants a fight? He’s on.’

Cheers erupted with volcanic force.

In my cubicle, I found Le Vol sitting on my cot. He sprang to his feet as I entered.

‘What do you think you’re playing at? It was you, wasn’t it? You put up that challenge.’

‘Haven’t you always wanted a revolution?’

‘I’m warning you, that’s all. Trouble’s trouble.’

‘Maybe he’s my kind of trouble.’

‘Yes, if you want to get beaten to a pulp! It was bad enough, tagging after him in the dining hall when he put on his little show. People are talking. This is Trouble, remember –
Trouble! Think what kind of person he is.’

‘I have.’ I slumped down on my cot. Le Vol’s face had flushed and I looked away from him. How ugly he was, how gangly and grotesque, with his fiery hair and ill-fitting
uniform!

‘Give it up, Sharpless. I’m telling you as a friend.’

Later that night, on the way to the bathroom, I found a ball of paper on the floor. No one was looking, so I picked it up, uncrumpled it, and folded it neatly. The challenge might have been a
holy relic, something vital I had to keep.

My duties as Trouble’s ‘second’ began soon enough. Whether he was rising early to run around the grounds, performing sit-ups or push-ups between classes,
jumping rope, touching toes, propelling himself along parallel bars, lifting dumb-bells or pummelling a punching bag, I was with him, counting laps, counting repetitions, counting time.

We were objects of derision, but neither of us cared. With peculiar exaltation I saw the sneers and heard the guffaws as we stood in assemblies side by side, as we made our way along corridors
together, as we sat apart from others at meals, sequestered in our special world.

Fellows gathered to watch Trouble train. Some called him ‘squirt’ or ‘little boy’; some called him worse things, but there came no greater torments. When I said to
Trouble that their behaviour surprised me, he looked at me pityingly. Hadn’t Scranway dictated their every move? Only Scranway, in the fight of the century, could deliver Trouble to his
fate.

Elmsley liked to hint at what was coming. He had taken to following us, trailing after us, watching us from a distance, poking his rodenty nose from behind a pillar as we passed. When I warned
him off, his ugly mouth smirked, teeth glimmering like a clutch of razor blades.

One afternoon, as winter gave way to spring, I sat on a bench in the changing room while Trouble showered. From behind a partition came the roar of water. I leaned back against the clammy wall.
Smells of ammonia and smells of sweat mingled pungently with the thickening steam.

‘You think you’re his one true friend, I suppose?’

The voice startled me: Elmsley, sliding closer along the varnished bench.

‘If you were his friend’ – Elmsley spoke low – ‘you’d make him give this up. But no, you have to have a tragedy, like
Cymbeline
.’

‘That isn’t a tragedy, it’s a romance. It’s different. Mr Gregg said so.’ I thought of Trouble singing with Elmsley in class. And Trouble in the chapel, lying
beaten. Understanding flowed through my awareness like a stain. Bitterly, I said: ‘You told Scranway about the song and the applause. That’s why he set Quibble and Kane on to
Trouble.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Elmsley.

‘Just like you told him what your cousin said.’

My ashplant rested beside me. Elmsley gripped it, leaped up, and swung it playfully, too close to my face.

‘Give that back.’ I staggered to my feet.

He smirked. ‘I thought we were pals, Sharpless.’

‘You’re a spy. Scranway’s spy.’

‘You know, I rather like this stick. How’s about a bit of the old soft shoe?’ He clicked his heels together, a song-and-dance man, slapping my ashplant to the tiled floor: one
side, then the other.

I flung myself upon him. I was slow, but bigger, heavier. The floor was wet. He skidded backwards. I pinned him against the wall. He squirmed, squealed. A steamy mirror reflected us: the bulky
earnest fool and this mischievous, mocking imp. I dug my nails into his hand, forcing my ashplant from his grip. I blundered back, almost falling.

He nursed his hand. ‘You bastard, Sharpless!’

‘Get out, Elmsley.’

His voice rose. ‘Do you think anybody likes you? Fellows were sorry for you for a while, that’s all. Pathetic cripple.’

‘Shut up!’ I swung back the ashplant.

Never in my life had I fought another boy. I felt strong and weak all at once. Already, it seemed, I could feel the heavy stick slam, with a sickening crunch, into his ribs. Yes, let him cry
out, sinking to his knees, blood vomiting from his astonished mouth! I would kill him: kill him. An instant more and I would have done it: could have.

Then Trouble was there. He gripped my ashplant. Slowly, reluctantly, I lowered my arm. Tucked about Trouble’s torso was a towel. His blond hair was dark and in tendrils, dripping
steadily.

I said to him, ‘Don’t you know what he’s done?’

‘Everyone knows what he’s done. Get out, Elmsley.’

Elmsley, like a rodent, scurried to the door, but turned back to Trouble with a sneer and said: ‘Scranway’s going to smash your teeth down your throat.’

My anger at Elmsley left me shaken. I was a bookish boy, and solitary. But I wanted so much to beat Elmsley that afterwards I half-regretted I had not done it. I told myself that Elmsley could
bring out murderous passions in a saint. But dimly I realized another explanation for my fury. It was Trouble: Trouble was dangerous. He had in him an excitability that had to go to extremes. And I
wanted to go with him.

As the fight of the century drew near, I lived in a trance of longing. One day Mr Gregg asked me if anything was wrong.

‘No, sir. Nothing.’ I mumbled something about Elizabethan lyrics. After Trouble had sung the song from
Cymbeline
, I had enquired, shyly, of Mr Gregg where I could find more
verses like that. My question delighted him, and he pushed into my hands a copy of
The Golden Pomp
, an anthology of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century verse edited by Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch. Now I was returning it, endeavouring to thank him.

He asked me if I had profited from it.

‘Yes, sir. Oh, yes.’ For weeks the little book had sailed beside me, enchanting me with its cargo of Shakespeare and Campion, Sidney and Fletcher, Spenser and Herrick and John Donne.
In the rhythms of these pages, clanging like cymbals, exploding like fireworks, meandering like streams, I sensed a connection with Trouble’s magic.

‘This enthusiasm for verse is something
new
, Mr Sharpless?’

I said, before I could stop myself: ‘I’m going to be a poet.’

‘Dear me, it’s as bad as that? Hmm... perhaps, then, this is the place to go next.’ From a shelf behind his desk Mr Gregg brought down another book, larger this time.
‘Sir Arthur again. But now the big picture – the whole story, as it were.’

The Oxford Book of English Verse
was a volume considerably more substantial than
The Golden Pomp
. Both daunted and grateful, I riffled through the pages. Awkwardly, I thanked
him.

I had reached the door when Mr Gregg called me back.

‘Tell me, you seem to be thick with Mr Pinkerton these days. Perhaps you could make him join the Glee Club? It’s not as if they’re overburdened with talent, and that
performance of his in class was remarkable.’

He cleared his throat. Distractedly, he tidied some papers on his desk.

‘You know, I’ve never believed this nonsense about being an all-rounder,’ he went on. ‘One should capitalize on one’s areas of strength. A little chap like that
will never make a pugilist, for example.’

‘No, sir. I suppose not, sir.’

In Mr Gregg’s eyes was both a certainty and a demand. I knew where he was leading. He had offered a way out, a release from the spell that bound me.

Fumbling, I reached into my jacket for the challenge. I held it out to him.

‘Well,’ he said, when he had read it. ‘Well, well.’

We were in Geography the next morning when the message came for Trouble to report to the headmaster. Fellows exchanged glances. There were murmurs, raised eyebrows.

After the lesson I was making my way upstairs, lagging behind the others, when Trouble appeared on the landing. At once a group of fellows surrounded him, quizzing him. One pushed him in the
chest. Several jeered. Only with difficulty did he break away.

I gripped his arm. ‘What happened?’

‘It was frightful. There was me, there was Scranway, there was the old boy glaring at us over that enormous ugly desk. And those ears of his, have you seen those ears up close?’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘The hairs! Huge sprouty tufts. Wouldn’t you say it behooves a man of his age to remove the coarse hairs that grow from his nose and ears? I’d have said it was common
courtesy.’

I almost shook him. ‘Trouble!’

‘Oh, we’ve got to call the whole thing off. Finished. Over. Or we’re both out.’

‘No! But how did he know?’ I tried to sound shocked.

Trouble laughed. ‘It was satisfying up to a point.
Mr Scranway, you ought to be ashamed of yourself
. Well, I’ve always thought
that
, but not that
I’m
an
imbecile and irresponsible and a disruptive influence.’ He kicked the banisters. ‘Damn it. Damn it to hell!’

‘Come on, it’s not so bad, is it?’ I said.

‘Who squealed?’

‘Obvious, isn’t it? Scranway couldn’t go through with it. A job cut out for Elmsley, wouldn’t you say?’

Trouble grabbed my ashplant. Startled, I let it slip from me. With a yelp, he bounded down the stairs, three steps at a time, slashing at his imagined enemy as he went. The sun, bold with
spring, spilled through the tall landing windows and struck his bright hair. In the hall below he pirouetted, bowed, and held my ashplant aloft before his face like a sacred sword.

I said, amazed: ‘First a boxer! What now, a samurai?’