The History Room (2 page)

They were all coming inside now, the mothers’ heels clattering up the stone steps into the marble-floored, white-stuccoed hall, an anomaly in the Elizabethan manor house with its
oak-panelled rooms. The group would stop in front of the famous Letchford mural. Everyone always wanted to see the painted wall with its gowned chatelaine standing outside the tree-surrounded
house. Normally at this point my mother Susan would have given her quick commentary, explaining that the artist was the headmaster himself. If pushed, she’d have admitted to being the model
for the serene Edwardian-looking woman. There’d be murmured acclaim.

Normally, by this stage, Dad would have found an excuse for moving swiftly out of the hall, perhaps muttering about checking on the coffee and biscuits in his study upstairs. Today he’d
have to talk about the mural himself. He’d hate it, preferring to deflect conversation towards the wall’s earlier fate, during the Second World War when the army had been billeted
here.

‘The soldiers completely covered the wall in graffiti and lewd drawings,’ he’d tell the group. ‘And put a dartboard on it. The wall was whitewashed when they left but you
could still see the words. And the images.’ Laughter from the group. ‘Hence the mural.’

This afternoon I was supposed to be marking English essays. They weren’t bad. Early in the term so perhaps I’d forgive the first-years the missed apostrophes and erratic
understanding of
they’re
,
their
and
there
. I circled errant letters and wrote comments and breathed in air that smelled like Earl Grey tea. On an afternoon like this I
could believe I could make my life work. A new academic year. The school smelling of new leather shoes, crisp exercise books and freshly painted walls.

Someone knocked on the staffroom door. Tempting to ignore the knock. I wanted to stay here in the sunny window seat with its view of the grounds and the Downs. Only pupils knocked, so the
interruption would probably involve someone being taken ill in class or behaving badly. Or a teacher needing help with a recalcitrant piece of technology. I slipped off the cushioned window seat
and walked over the wooden floor to open the door. In front of me stood a third-year girl. ‘Oh, you’re here, Mrs Cordingley. Mr Radcliffe needs a member of staff to go to his classroom
straight away, please.’

Her wide eyes broadcast excitement. A disciplinary problem? Nope. Simon could have managed a classroom full of chimpanzees. I sighed for my interrupted solitude and followed her. As we walked
across the landing to the stairs I saw the rounded grey outline of a Globemaster plane through the window. Taking off from RAF Brize Norton. My muscles stiffened. I hoped the girl hadn’t
noticed.

Outside the history room third-years clustered, chatting and laughing, eyes bright like magpies.

‘It’s a stiff,’ one boy was saying. ‘Got your iPhone? We’ll get a picture.’ A hand moved towards a pocket.

‘Thank you.’ I held out my own hand for the phone. ‘You know the rules about mobiles. Collect it from me after assembly.’ The second boy dropped the phone into my palm
with a scowl.

‘There’ve been Satanic rites going on in there,’ someone else muttered. ‘That’s why Mr Radcliffe wouldn’t let us see inside that box.’

‘Did you see a pentagon in the floor or something?’

‘Sometimes they kill chickens. There was that film on in the holidays . . .’

I put the mobile into my pocket and pulled the door handle. It didn’t open.

‘Mr Radcliffe locked it,’ someone said helpfully. I knocked and the door opened. Simon stood in front of me, his round, friendly face pale.

‘Meredith, thank God.’ He waved me inside and shut the door on the goggling eyes outside. A cardboard box sat on one of the desks. It was about the size of a large shoebox.
‘Can you call the police? My mobile’s out of battery.’

‘What’s in there?’ I approached the desk. He put out a hand to restrain mine from touching the lid of the box.

‘Probably best not to look. The police mightn’t like it.’

I moved my hand away but not before I’d nudged the lid so that it opened a little. ‘What do you mean, the police? What’s in there, Simon?’

He turned to me. ‘A baby.’

‘What?’

‘A dead baby, Meredith. Oh God.’ And he put a hand to his mouth and coughed. I peered at the gap left by the displaced lid and thought I could detect something light and delicate in
the box, shaped like a curling shell. Or an infant’s hand. I stared at the vague outline. Something else metallic glinted inside the box. Simon had placed the little coffin on one of the
girls’ desks and it sat beside a fuffly fluorescent-green pencil case; pens, compasses and rulers exposed.

‘Where did you find it?’ I could barely speak.

‘In the cupboard.’ He nodded at the large oak piece in the corner. ‘I went to look for textbooks. I saw the box and wondered what it was.’ His eyes were still wide,
remembering. ‘Wish I hadn’t peeped inside during the lesson. When I saw what was in it I closed it immediately and sent the children out of the room. I don’t think any of them saw
the . . . what was in it.’ He swallowed. ‘Perhaps I should have left the box inside the cupboard. Hope I haven’t disturbed the crime scene or something.’

‘I’m sure you haven’t. And you were right to send the kids outside.’

‘Go and call the police, Meredith,’ he said again. ‘And tell your father, too. I’ll lock the room until they get here.’

Normally the minutes leading up to a staff meeting were filled with gossip and complaints that someone had used up all the milk or pinched the last chocolate biscuits. This
room was oak panelled like most of the Letchford rooms apart from the entrance hall. Once the staffroom had been a library to which Edwardian males retired for post-dinner conversations about
racehorses, gun dogs and mistresses. You could still smell the cigars smoked there over the last century or so, even if the aroma of musty textbooks and the PE department’s damp trainers had
insinuated themselves into the scent.

Only my father was yet to arrive. I was still keeping half an eye open for my mother. She’d normally been the first to appear, with a quick smile for everyone. Often I’d seen her in
a corner talking quietly to someone. Mum would be nodding, eyes fixed on the person addressing her. And the teacher or lab assistant would sit up straighter. They might even smile. She’d been
the perfect foil for my father, who, for all his cultivation of a genial English gentleman’s persona, had never discarded his central-European seriousness.

Growing restless, people were checking mobiles for messages and jumping up to peer out of the windows. One or two pulled exercise books out of bags and began marking work. Others huddled in
groups, whispering and shrugging. Emily Fleming bit her lip and looked intently at the chair on which my father would sit when he came in. Emily was the young New Zealander Dad had taken on as a
gappy, as pupils called them: a school leaver who wanted a year’s work experience in a school before university. Gappies helped organize games lessons and after-school activities. Usually
they were cheerful, sporty young men and women, half nostalgic for the cricket pitches and tennis courts they’d only just forsaken themselves. Emily Fleming looked like the kind of girl
who’d prefer to stay indoors. This afternoon she sat with one foot wound around the opposite leg, biting her lip and hugging her mug of tea to herself. Her long light-brown hair fell over her
face, obscuring her features. She’d only been in England a few weeks. Staff meetings were new to her. Everything was new to her. God knows what she’d made of the police cars. She was as
pale as the white mug in her hands.

‘Did you notice,’ Deidre Hamilton, head of languages, whispered to Simon and me from behind her hand, ‘that the police didn’t take anything away with them? No body or
anything?’ Her eyes glinted.

I hadn’t mentioned the contents of the cardboard box to anyone, telling the children milling outside Simon’s classroom to go outside immediately for an early break. One or two had
hung around, reluctant to sever themselves from the excitement, and I’d threatened them with demerits. I’d gone straight to find my father, catching him in the front hall as he was
saying goodbye to a group of parents who’d finished their tour of the school. He’d listened to what I’d told him, betraying his concern only by the twitching of a nerve beside his
eye, and insisted on calling the police himself. As we were talking, Emily Fleming had come inside from the garden. Her eyes widened as she watched him rush upstairs to his telephone. Dad never
carried a mobile with him. ‘Is everything all right?’ she’d asked me. ‘Has there been an accident?’ Her voice quivered slightly.

‘We found . . . something in Simon’s room,’ I told her.

‘What?’ She bit her lower lip.

‘I’d better not say any more just now. There’ll probably be a staff meeting later.’ As I walked upstairs I felt her stare on my back and felt the urge to turn to ask her
if she was all right. But Simon had been waiting.

The pupils in Simon’s disturbed history lesson would have babbled to their friends about something going on. There’d have been texting, tweeting and Facebooking. And they’d
certainly have seen the police cars pulling up outside. And now Deidre knew about the little body within the box.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked Deidre. ‘Perhaps they’ve already taken away . . . whatever it was.’ I tried to remember how they carried out these procedures in television
dramas. My husband Hugh had been a fan of anything involving onscreen mortuaries. He’d have known the order in which these things occurred.

‘I’m certain.’ Her head bobbed towards ours. ‘And I haven’t seen a pathologist or what-do-you-call-them, SOCOs.’

‘Hanging out of the window, were we, Deidre?’ Simon tutted. ‘You’re worse than the kids. You’ve been watching too many forensic dramas.’ His voice was jovial
but I still detected a note of strain.

What would things be like by now in the boarding houses? Most of the children here were day pupils but some were weekly and termly boarders. The sixth-formers would have a job keeping the
kids’ minds on their prep while we held this emergency meeting.

Dad was coming in now, carrying a plastic bag, his eyes slightly narrowed. People nudged each other. Some gave me quick sideways glances. The headmaster’s daughter: the one who’d
slouched home because her life had fallen apart. The one who couldn’t be entirely on their side because of her family loyalties.
Careful what you say in front of her, it might get passed
back to Charles. What’s she like in the classroom, anyway? Lucky for her there happened to be a maternity leave to cover here. Anyone know where she was before? Ah, a comprehensive.
She’ll be great at crowd control
.

Dad had presence, the kind that can’t be learned or taught. People sat up straighter when he entered a room. Men fiddled with the top button of their shirts and adjusted ties. Women
teachers swept imaginary creases from their trousers or skirts. He was pale this evening, his mouth set. He looked round the room, probably seeking out my mother, too. He’d always liked her
to be here. I saw him give himself a mental shake.
She will never come to another staff meeting
. He walked to the table where we served coffee and biscuits each morning break, his Lobb shoes
shining, his summer suit still uncreased. Nobody said a word.

‘Good evening, everyone. There is something I need to show you.’ He pulled the cardboard box out of the bag, took off the lid and tipped the box over. I stood, couldn’t help
myself, wanted to shout at him to stop, not to expose to us whatever was in there.

A small body toppled onto the table. Metal clinked against wood. Someone repressed a scream. ‘My God,’ Simon said. I heard myself make a sound like a muffled warning.

The baby lay on the wooden surface, one arm hanging loose, the other curled up towards its face as though it were about to suck its thumb. It wore a long white linen gown and lace cap. Its hands
were motionless; its pale-blue eyes gazed at us calmly. From its chest protruded the handle of a silver paperknife. I blinked and looked again and there was the baby, still lying on the oak
staffroom table, beside the pile of geography exercise books and a single unwashed coffee cup.

‘Dad . . .’

‘A prank.’ His hands were trembling. ‘Someone placed this, this . . . doll in the box in the history room cupboard.’

‘Doll?’ I said, stupidly.

Simon was rising to his feet. ‘I’m telling you it looked like a real baby, it . . .’ He choked on his words.

‘I wouldn’t concern yourself about having been gulled.’ Dad’s lips formed a forced smile. ‘Even the police were convinced. For just the one single moment.’ He
was feeling the strain; reverting to over-precise, stilted English, with a hint of foreign intonation. I wondered if the others had noticed.

Emily stared at him. I noticed how she clenched her thin hands together so that the knuckles showed white. She seemed to retreat beneath the folds of the silky cardigan she wore as though she
were trying to hide herself away. It was just a prank, I reminded myself. Horrible and macabre, but nothing more than a prank.

Deidre had risen from her seat. ‘It looks incredibly lifelike.’ She approached the table and put out a hand, looking at my father inquiringly.

He shrugged. ‘Go ahead.’

‘What about fingerprints?’ someone asked.

‘The police didn’t take them.’

‘Why on earth not?’ burst out Simon.

‘No crime has been committed. Other than wasting police time.’

‘But . . .’ Simon pointed at the paperknife.

‘This’ – my father nodded at the stabbed doll – ‘is merely a toy. There is no known crime of stabbing a toy, unpleasant though we have found it.’

‘Pretty weird toy.’ Simon spoke through gritted teeth. ‘What kind of person would want something like that?’

‘I’ve read about those dolls. I can’t remember what they’re called.’ Deidre bit her lip, considering.

‘You mean there are more of them?’ Simon sounded revolted. We were all craning our necks towards the table now, the staffroom resembling a dark repainting of a Nativity scene: the
onlookers scared and repulsed by the infant at the centre of the tableau.