The White Devil (3 page)

AFTERWARD, ANDREW STAGGERED
to his room. He could not absorb any more. Theo stopped him in the corridor.

“All right, mate?”

“My brain is mush.”

“It’ll come. Want a lager?”

“What?”

“Beer.”

“You sneak them in?”

“Sneak? I don’t sneak anything. It’s my beer allowance.”

Andrew blinked. “From home?”

“From the bloody housemaster. God, you
are
tired. Come on. Beer?”

Andrew hesitated. His father’s voice materialized again.
You make this good or we’re through with you
.

“It’s been a long day.”

“Don’t worry about those wankers.” He nodded toward the rest of the house. “That’s just the way they are.”

“I get it. Rain check on that beer.”

Puzzled look. “Rainjacket?”

“Never mind. Good night.”

SLEEP CAME LIKE
a whirlwind, more frenetic than the stone drop of that afternoon’s nap. He had traveling dreams: airplanes, escalators, passport lines, nonstop images flashing like some endless video game. These combined with a relentless review of all the new language he’d been exposed to, as if his subconscious mind were scribbling it down for an exam: questions that rose in the middle, not the end of the sentence (
have you ever BEEN there?
); new idioms (
lift, brilliant, jumper
) and pronunciations (
hoff
for
half
,
chizz
for
cheers
—what does
cheers
mean anyway?). Then the images sped up, reached nauseating speeds.

The bleached-out faces from the common room photographs.

X rays. White hair and black faces.

Uniforms. Black clothes. Straw hats.

The face of a single Harrow boy with white hair came into view. Then whipped around and around, a repeating frame in a feverish slide show.

The face came closer with each pass. It pulsed with raw intensity. He knew, in his dream, that the face belonged to someone intensely exciting. Andrew grew aroused. He felt his heart beating, felt himself simultaneously panic and thrill.

He woke with a start. He was sweating. Disoriented in the dark.

School
, he breathed
. England. Dorm room
. Then:
sleep
.

He drifted to murkier depths, free at last of word and image. He slumbered until his travel alarm woke him, at seven, with its merciless electric whine.

2

A Wrong Turn

ANDREW HAD LITTLE
time the next morning to reflect upon his dream. Only in the in-between moments. Pulling on his socks, standing in line for eggs and kippers (
They really serve kippers here
, he observed in surprise; they were fried, brown, and oily; not tempting). His anxiety came at him, obliquely, as anxieties do, and therefore all the more distressing; not with a bold proposition (
One night in a boys’ school and you have become gay
) but with an insinuation (
Theo stood very close to you yesterday, shepherded you, tied your tie; Theo is good-looking, tan, stylish . . . then you have that dream
). Andrew would not have admitted it, but his previous boarding school, Frederick Williams, had been a coddling place. Its faculty consisted of baby boomers who oozed liberal virtues and tried to force these onto their pupils in the form of self-congratulatory fund-raising for Haiti, or a Diversity Day that included a handful of brave “out” senior boys and girls identifying themselves as officers of the student group Pride. Tolerance for homosexuality was not only officially demanded; it in fact took root; so while Andrew rebelled against his school (in a Holden Caulfield way, believing its leafy opulence was really somehow oppressive to its students), he had internalized these American cultural sensitivities. Back home, he could have (cautiously) cornered a friend or a teacher and
talked about
his apprehensions, his
experience
. He had wit enough now to look around him and realize that in his current environment—the taut English faces, the centuries-old traditions of dress and name (Churchill songs, Churchill buildings; every house named after some long-dead Ur-beak)—such sensitivities were not shared; or at least, not outwardly.
Look at the way they abuse Hugh
. He sensed, rightly, that in an all-boys’ school homosexuality was the greatest sin. The more convenient the transgression, the more potent the taboo. He would keep the vivid dream to himself.

He had no chance to reflect or talk anyhow. He had overslept. He nearly missed breakfast. He arrived two minutes late to class—
lessons
—disheveled, unwashed, and breathless.

THE CLASSROOM WAS
small and square. Individual desks were arrayed in a phalanx. (At FW there had been round tables—so egalitarian.) Here a dais stood at the front (so hierarchical). A beak sat waiting there, legs crossed, a kind of statue. This was Andrew’s first Harrow class. For this beak, it was his thousandth. Mr. Montague. Silver-haired. Skin mottled with age. A dapper but countryish green suit under his black robes. Mouth tucked in an ironic pout. Eyebrows in a permanent arch; they rose slightly at Andrew’s late entrance. But Andrew was not the last. One more seat sat empty. Mr. Montague exchanged some banter with the boys while they waited. The banter was larded with respectful
Sir
s, seasoned with eager, show-offy anecdotes from the newly risen Sixth Formers. All this was friendly, even affectionate, Andrew noticed. (At FW, the baby boomer faculty who had chosen such a low-paying career as
teaching
were treated with suppressed contempt by the students, children of Wall Streeters, who knew that grades didn’t matter, didn’t help you make millions; that these teachers, then, must be little better than servants.) At last a strapping, peach-complected boy entered, hair shower-wet and tousled.
Good morning, Utley
, said Mr. Montague pointedly.
Morning, sir
, Utley said with a blush. Mr. Montague stood. He held up a volume of Chaucer.

“A-Levels are upon you, kiddies. And what better time to learn to read, pronounce, and comment upon . . . Middle English.” He smiled wolfishly as the anticipated groan went up from the class.

ANDREW REMAINED LOST
and late through the morning. He ran to his next activity. The Newboys Tour. A throng of little boys in hats pushed down the High Street.
That must be it
, he thought, and only when he approached did he realize that he would be joining a company of Shells. Eighth graders. Andrew joined their ranks. They were herded from one Harrow landmark to another. He towered over even the tallest of them, feeling like the big hairy dumb one who had been kept back five times. Vaz had been right—there were no new students in the upper forms.

Finally they came to the Vaughan Library, oppressively quiet, more a museum than a place to study, boasting stained-glass windows and Plexiglas cases protecting rare manuscripts. There the librarian—small, round, and sixty, with an orange bob and the no-nonsense air of an Englishwoman on camelback—introduced herself with the Bond-villainish name of Dr. Kahn, and opened with a five-minute harangue scolding them
not to eat in the Vaughan Library
before launching into her prepared remarks on school history
.
Andrew zoned out. The little boys fidgeted with boredom. That is, until the girl was introduced.

“Miss Vine, would you stand?” called out Dr. Kahn.

There followed a shuffle of interest, and a craning of necks.

As you see, the adoption of the Harrow uniform chosen by Miss Vine for a girl’s use is by chance—or simply good taste—the closest thing you will see to the original boys’ uniform
, continued the librarian.
No tie. An open collar. White shirt—the original would have been linen, of course. You see before you a reasonable facsimile of how a Harrow boy would have appeared before, say, 1850.

Names and dates and school history are no way to get a twelve-year-old boy’s attention. Miss Vine, however, was. Little boys—a hundred of them, delicate, with pale, sticky fingers and peering, earnest faces—stood up, jumped into the aisles, and, in the back, even climbed on the benches to get a glimpse.

“I didn’t know Harrow had any girls,” Andrew whispered to his nearest bench mate, keeping his eyes on the girl.

“Persephone Vine. Transferred here for her A-Level year,” hissed the boy
.

Andrew gaped, along with the others.

This girl was worth the extra attention. She stood five seven, with fair skin, a dusting of freckles across her nose, a wide, heavy mouth, and something exotic in the eyes: an elongated Cleopatra quality, green and carnivorously lazy, blinking patiently as she stood with hands behind her back before the assembly, as if she were a crocodile on display before a flock of pigeons. Her hair curled in corkscrews, dark, chaotic, piling up and spilling down to her collarbone. Her bones were fine. Long fingers, feminine nails. She chewed her lips, trying to conceal their fleshiness. But it was her chest that had the boys clambering for a view. Her breasts strained, tight and smooth, against the white shirt that Dr. Kahn was so proud of. A hundred pairs of X-ray vision labored to make out a nipple. As Miss Vine endured the sudden commotion, she blushed slightly. At that the librarian realized what she had done, and with an apologetic
That will do, dear
, gestured Miss Vine back to her seat.

Andrew whispered. “Girls are allowed to transfer?”

The boy shrugged. “Housemaster’s daughter. Special favor. So she can say she took her A-Levels at Harrow.” He stood on tiptoe, then lowered himself with a sulk: “She sat down.”

Andrew felt his heart rate accelerate, but persuaded himself it was pointless. He did the mental math. A girl like that would have a boyfriend. And even if she didn’t, how many boys at Harrow were there, Sixth Form boys, stumbling over each other to get to her? It was too obvious anyway—the one girl at a boys’ school? She would no doubt make every effort to show she was here to study, not to date.

WHILE SLUMPED IN
chapel some time later, Andrew looked up and saw
the girl
, Persephone Vine, staring at him. He at first dismissed it. He recalled his earlier logic. But she continued peering at him with undisguised curiosity, as if he were a coveted antique she had spotted in a flea market.

And then afterward she waited for him. He saw her in the sea of bluers, holding the door for the younger boys and waving them through with an amused smile, playing crossing guard. The kids fawned like puppies. She mussed their hair. As Andrew came closer, he saw her eyes pick him out of the chapel gloom.

“You there. Young man.”

You thehhh
. Andrew knew enough to recognize the accent as upper-crust; if he hadn’t, he could have just noted the imperious tone.

“Hi,” he said.

“I wanted to speak to you. Hang on—say that again,” she commanded.

“All I did was say hello.”

“Oh
God
, you’re American!” She shrieked this, as if he had stabbed her.

“What?” he stammered. More Shells jostled past. The chapel was almost empty.

“It will never work.” She regarded him coldly. “Pity. And you look like him, too.”

“L-look like who—whom?” he corrected himself. (
It’s England
, some part of him was saying;
they notice how you use their language
.)

“Lord Byron, that’s
whom
,” she said sarcastically.

“Lord . . .”

“I know you’re American, but you
have
heard of Lord Byron?”

But he did not have time to answer. She began tugging at the chapel doors to close them. They were heavy, and this required effort, but when he rushed to her side she snapped again:
I have it
.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of Lord Byron,” he said.

She started toward the gate. “What?”

“I said I’ve heard of Lord Byron,” he half shouted.

“You must be very proud,” she said, now dripping with sarcasm.

“Well, you asked.” Andrew felt put out. Girls were supposed to be nicer than boys. Girls were especially supposed to be nicer than boys
to him
. By this time, if they were back home, she would have been brimming with curiosity, her voice just beginning to warm . . .

“You look like him,” she conceded.

“Like Lord Byron?”

“Yes. Why do you think I was staring at you? You thought I was scoping you out? God, you Harrow boys are so full of yourselves, aren’t you?”

“I’m new,” he stammered. “Not really a Harrow . . . boy . . . yet.”

“I’m sure you’re just like the rest,” she said in a fatigued voice.

“Why are you looking for . . .”

“Someone who looks like Byron? We’re casting a play. Well, we
cast
a play. In the spring. About Lord Byron. But our lead failed out of school. Very handsome. Totally stupid. Not even that handsome, if you ask me. How sexy can you be in a bloody straw hat?” Andrew blushed. She continued. “The Rattigan Society play. An original, this time. Not the usual Shakespeare. A play about Lord Byron . . . you
do
know Lord Byron went to Harrow?” Andrew nodded. “Written by a Harrow master. Piers Fawkes.”

“Piers Fawkes?”

“You know him?” For the first time her voice rose with interest.

“He’s my housemaster.”

“You know his work?”

“You mean . . .”

“He’s a poet,” she finished for him. “He’s completely brilliant. I thought maybe you’d read him. But Harrovians are not known for keeping up with contemporary poetry, are you? I’m in it.”

“Oh, you act?”

“Yes, I act. You’re a bit thick, aren’t you, even for an American?”

Finding his voice at last, Andrew observed: “There’s really not a good way of answering that question.”

A hiccup of laughter escaped her, as if against her will. She stopped walking.

Andrew had been following her. They had plunged down the High Street until it dipped downhill and grew leafier, the shops yielding to hedges. Now they stood at the mouth of a driveway that veered down to a stone house—another dormitory—with yellow brick chimneys and a shaggy half-acre yard.

“If you’re in Piers Fawkes’s house, you’re going the wrong way,” she said, more gently. “This is Headland.”

“Oh?”

“The Lot is that way.” She jabbed her finger back where they’d come.

“Oh, okay. Thanks.”

“Have you done any acting?”

“A little. I played the bad guy in a play called
The Foreigner
. . .”

“
Liddle
,” she mocked. “
Bad guy
. You’re
so
American. If you were Scottish, maybe. Byron had a bit of a brogue. But
Yank
. The governors would have a fit. They commissioned the play, you know. Of course they want it to be all grand and heroic but all Byron did was fuck. Boys and girls. I play Augusta, Byron’s sister—or half sister—and he fucks me, too. We’ll see how much gets past the censors. Sorry, am I shocking you?”

“No,” Andrew answered untruthfully.

He wasn’t shocked by her language—as he had a feeling he was intended to be—but by a gorgeous girl saying the words
fuck me
so casually. It was like a form of heresy.
Don’t disparage what I would hold so dear.
He saw in her eyes, observed in her edgy manner, a desire to push away, alienate.

“Well, can I try out? I’ve come this far,” he said, forcing a laugh to show he was making a joke, about coming down the hill. . . . She didn’t laugh.

“What, for the Byron play?”

“Yeah.”

She shrugged. “I can’t stop you.”

“So how would I do that?”

“Ask Piers.”

“Mr. Fawkes?”

“Yes,
Misterr Fawkes
,” she mocked in Americanese.

“I’m Andrew. Taylor.” He extended his hand. She ignored it. Instead she appraised him again.

“I’ll take you to him,” she declared at last. “I want credit for bagging and mounting a Byron doppelgänger. I’m speaking metaphorically, of course.”

Andrew’s pulse raced. “Of course.”

She finally extended her hand and pumped Andrew’s in a mock businesslike way. Then she turned on her heel and strode down the gravel drive.

“
Kalispera, Andrea
,” she called in a language he did not recognize.

Housemaster’s daughter. She must live here, with her parents. Andrew considered this as he waited, staring at Headland House.