Wilberforce (3 page)

—That'll do.

Mouth unstopped. Air. Like oceans but sharper.

—What'd you do that for, Fletch?

—Let him up.

Pain, breath, attachment to this world; a furious grip that refused to let go, refused to depart when called—

—He's done, Silk.

—But I haven't even—

—He's blubbing. That's it.

Through tears, a swimming vision of his tormentors, Bradley and Fletcher, so wicked and so human.

—You're no fun at all.

Lightness now as if he would fly! Breath like a racing wave, and horror—

—Don't worry, Fletch, we'll improve him. He'll take the whole doz before long.

He had refused
her
. His own mother, alone in death, had held out her hand to him, and he refused. He was no longer the person he had been. Something alien, grotesque, this new self. Over her he had chosen the world and its wretchedness.

*   *   *

Was he awake and trying to sleep, or asleep and trying to wake? If he could wrestle his way back, he could order his thoughts and do something … about whatever lurked beyond the curtain. His elbow might never straighten properly, S-K might never look at him with anything but scorn, Mr. Grieves might no longer trust him, Silk might never … but Silk was gone, not quite as she was gone, but gone from his ken. None of it could be put back, and who cared anymore? He was seventeen years old. He cared nothing for the opinions of his Headmaster, his history master, or his father. As for his mother, at least she would never have to know his father as he was now, a widower in London, drained of zest. Whatever skulked beyond the curtain could sod off, as far as he was concerned. He, Morgan Wilberforce, was seventeen years old—as previously discussed!—and subject to no one. He may have bashed himself about at rugby that afternoon or whenever it had been, but he was in control of himself now. He was not primed to dive down any staircases, to break any more bones or any more anything.

Whatever lurked in the shadows could perk up its ears and listen: The life of Morgan Wilberforce did not require breaking. It was buggered already. If the shadow wished amusement, it could sod off somewhere pristine, somewhere people still cared, somewhere worth busting. There was no amusement to be had at St. Stephen's Academy on this day in March 1926. The Academy was an entirely undiverting institution, languishing since the War, full of unremarkable people doing things of no import. He, Morgan Wilberforce, was no scholar, no wit, and no very remarkable athlete. He mattered nothing to anyone. He had outgrown preposterous notions of mattering. There was no fun, in short, to be had in their domain, so yon skulker-in-the-shadow could just take itself off where it had come from. St. Stephen's Academy and Morgan himself were too unexceptional for evil to bother with them.

 

3

John Grieves disliked social occasions. There were benefits to being an undermaster with digs in Fridaythorpe rather than living within the walls of the Academy, such as the space, however brief, to think his thoughts undisturbed. In the minus column, his rooms were expensive to heat and required a quarter of an hour's bicycle ride twice a day in rain, sleet, snow, or occasionally sunshine. Also in the minus column, he had no private place at the Academy itself to confer with boys, except his classroom. The other masters thought him either put-upon or tragically acquiescent to the Headmaster's miserly ways, but he defended his arrangement to any who would, after seven years, listen: He would not have it another way. He cherished his autonomy in Fridaythorpe and his social horizons in the village. This last was not quite true, but it sounded plausible. But now, this Friday in March, for the satisfaction of a rugby wager, he was due to entertain Lockett-Egan.

John made it a rule not to socialize with his colleagues outside the gates of the Academy, but he made an exception for the Eagle, who had some years previous established a pattern of fortnightly fellowship at the Cross Keys, the only watering hole within fifteen miles of the Academy and John's refectory-cum-study in Fridaythorpe. They knew him there. He never had to place an order. When he walked in, tea would be brought to him, and food of some description. Over the years, they had learned the outline of his private life, but they did not intrude with conversation unless he initiated it. Masters from the Academy frequented the Keys Sunday afternoons; at these times, John confined himself to his rooms across the road. He justified his aloofness with the label teetotaler. In time, the explanation had become unquestioned fact, making sense of everything.

Tonight as the Eagle shouldered his way from the bar, John tried to look congenial, but all he could think of was the Eagle's alarming confession on the sidelines of the rugby pitch that afternoon.

—What's wrong? the Eagle asked him.

—Pocklington, John said. You can't take it.

—Finger off the trigger. I haven't even sat down.

The Eagle removed his overcoat, took a seat, and raised his glass; John raised his tea mug.

—How many more days in this godforsaken term? the Eagle asked.

—Fourteen.

—Any chance you'd abandon your Quaker ways and kill me now?

John grimaced.

—That's right, the Eagle replied, I forgot you're a saint. One who wouldn't have felt my entirely unchristian satisfaction hearing Clem's bookcases collapse this evening.

So that was the commotion during Prep. When Clement supervised the Third, little of the evening was devoted to preparation and much to mischief. John found Clement more aggravating than he wanted to. Clem was in his eighties, a gentle soul who didn't bully and didn't persecute, but his lessons and his House were disasters. John had no idea how the Eagle tolerated working under him. Of course he'd be tempted by offers from other schools.

—Any notion who was behind it? John asked.

—Too many notions.

—The Third are sowing their oats.

—The Third are feral beasts, as previously discussed.

They had discussed the Third Form ad nauseam, and there was no question—between the two of them or within the Senior Common Room as a whole—that this year's Third were a thoroughly bad crop. John often felt the school was on the verge of anarchy.

—We're all at the end of our tether, John said. But that's no reason to let Pocklington poach you.

The Eagle's neck colored:

—It's more that I submitted my credentials and they offered me a post.

—You—but—how could you? John exclaimed.

He realized at once this was the wrong thing to say.

—Just what sort of post is it?

—Housemaster.

John's heart sank. The Eagle had been waiting years to become a Housemaster at the Academy, laboring as undermaster in Clement's since before the War.

—I suppose congratulations are in order, John said.

It sounded grudging.

—So you see my dilemma, the Eagle said.

—What dilemma?

Now he was sounding bitter. It was no way to treat a friend.

—Burton.

—What business is it of his?

Of course Burton-Lee would interfere. He was loyal to the Headmaster and had been at the Academy more than thirty years. John detested him on almost every ground, but if Burton could dissuade the Eagle from leaving …

—The thing is, Burton's had an offer himself, the Eagle said.

—What! From where?

—Some place in Dorset.

—What
place
?

—And he's thinking of taking it.

—But—but he can't! You can't! This simply makes no sense.

John's neck cramped. He could think of nothing to say, nothing to protest the monstrous notion of Burton and the Eagle both abandoning the Academy. The Eagle drank his pint in pained silence, and John realized the notion made every kind of sense. He collapsed into a sulk:

—Wilberforce wrecked his shoulder.

—Oh, yes?

—Partial dislocation, Matron said.

—Didn't he break his arm last year? the Eagle asked.

—Three years ago.

John remembered everything—curse of the historian—but, honestly, how could the Eagle have got to the point of confusing last year with three years ago? It required a perverse ignorance of time.

—And that was no accident, John told him.

—I thought he fell down some stairs.

—That's what everyone said, but obviously it wasn't true.

—It wasn't?

The Eagle sat forward, curiosity piqued.

—Of course not. Bradley was responsible.

—Bradley pushed Wilberforce down the stairs?

—Forget the stairs, John said impatiently. It happened in Bradley's study.

The Eagle goggled behind his thick spectacles:

—But you never told me this. Are you saying Bradley deliberately broke Wilberforce's arm and ribs and whatever else?

—Perhaps not deliberately, John admitted, but he did it. It was all to do with the digging debacle and—

—You mean your archaeology project?

—Yes—

—When they dug up Gallowhill's skull—

—It
wasn't
his skull.

—I know you always suspected Wilberforce, but was there ever proof?

—Bradley found proof, obviously.

The Eagle removed his spectacles and wiped them, as he always did when considering a thorny proposition:

—Back up, Grievous. Are you saying Bradley beat Wilberforce senseless because he found proof of the Gallowhill business?

—It's the only explanation, John said. Number one, Wilberforce helped me dig the archaeology pit and so had opportunity to plant the skull. Number two, Gallowhill meant the world to Bradley. Number three, on the very same day that we're told Hazlehurst's JCR have dealt with the matter, we hear that Wilberforce is in the Tower, having fallen down a flight of stairs. So. I ask you.

The Eagle peered into his empty glass.

—That's a serious allegation. Did you discuss it with S-K?

—What do you think? John asked. But by that time Wilberforce had gone home, so S-K put it off until the next term, and then there was the blowup with Wilberforce refusing confirmation.

—That! I still can't believe he had the nerve to thwart S-K. I wouldn't.

—But isn't that precisely what you're doing with Pocklington? John argued.

The Eagle bristled:

—Refusing confirmation and resigning are entirely different matters.

—What makes you think the Head at Pocklington will be any less tyrannical?

—Nothing, the Eagle replied, but it will be a novel tyranny. And I'll have a House.

John felt desperate:

—With you and Burton gone, who'll help me stop the Third turning into … something that will make Bradley and Co. look like choirboys?

The Eagle sighed and then went to the bar for another round. He returned with a second mug of tea for John.

—Grieves, he said, you can't blame yourself for Bradley.

—I don't.

—If Bradley really did all that to Wilberforce, it wasn't your fault, no matter how incandescent you were about the skull business.

—I know it wasn't my fault.

—You don't know it. And you don't know that Wilberforce was behind the skull. Take some advice for once and let the grudge go.

—Grudge? John balked. Grudge against whom?

—Against Wilberforce, against Bradley, against yourself.

—You're a fine one to talk. You're bolting—

—Possibly, the Eagle said. But the point you're missing is Wilberforce.

—What about him?

—That tackle today was pointless and destructive. He's going off the rails, and you're the only person he respects.

—Me? Wilberforce doesn't respect—

—Of course it's possible I'm imagining the whole thing, the Eagle concluded. In which case there's nothing to worry about.

John's mouth soured. He set his tea aside.

—Do yourself a favor, the Eagle counseled. Cast a glance across Positions Vacant. You're young, clever, healthy, and decent. You could have a future of your own if you weren't so afraid of it.

*   *   *

The Eagle's remarks re Morgan Wilberforce were almost as disturbing as his news of impending defections from the SCR. He had foisted his Wilberforce theory on John without a sliver of evidence, but once John had regained the quiet of his little rooms, he was able to see that the Eagle's claims were ludicrous. Wilberforce was as slothful and indifferent in John's lessons as in any other. They had no outside rapport since the Gallowhill business, and if the Eagle thought they did, it was only because his myopia (literal and figurative) caused him to conflate the years. The span between 1923 and 1926 might not seem to the Eagle the enormous era it was to boys growing into whiskers, but it was nevertheless a long time. It was long enough for boys to change unrecognizably, to stretch many inches, to come out in spots, to outgrow several pairs of trousers, to lose their voices and then regain them octaves lower, and to acquire the general narcolepsy of late adolescence. In short, the years between St. Stephen's Third and Fifth Forms were more revolutionary to the person than the Bolsheviks had been to Russia (stretching it perhaps, but never mind!); thus there was no reason for the Eagle to imagine that Morgan Wilberforce retained even a memory of whatever respect he once had for John, which was in any case questionable!

 

4

Matron released him from the Tower Sunday evening after immobilizing his left arm in bandages and a sling. It was possible, she said, that he'd damaged more than his shoulder, but as the holidays would begin in less than a fortnight, he could wait and see his father's physician in Harley Street rather than inconvenience the surgeon. Morgan had little time for the medical profession, which tended to disagree in its opinions and restrict him in his activities. Indeed, Matron repeated her injunction against all Games, especially rugby, but she declared that nothing should prevent him completing his prep that night or any other. Morgan left the ward more vexed than he'd ever before felt upon escaping captivity.