Wilberforce (32 page)

—Right, Rabbet began, are you going to tell us where you've been?

—I've already told Kilby, but he don't like facts.

—That's because they aren't facts, Kilby snapped.

—Do you fancy yourself Sherlock Holmes, Kilby? Can you read the history of my evening on my trouser flies?

—You need taking down a peg, Barlow told him.

—Do I, Barlow? Do you reckon that with the same cunning intellect that's led our great House to ruin twice this week?

Barlow stepped forward:

—You don't even belong here, Wilberforce.

—I'm glad we agree. Good night.

Morgan turned on his heel, but Kilby blocked the door.

—Things have changed, you impertinent little pip.

—The Academy is under new leadership, said Rabbet.

—Read that on a notice board, have you? Funny, but as you three are still here, efficient as ever, you'll excuse me if I can't believe everything I'm told.

—Look! Barlow exclaimed. We aren't going to gas around with you all night!

—That is a relief. Can I go?

Rabbet roused himself from his chair and took up the cane, which had been lying across the table.

—Leave off the bravado and touch your toes, Wilberforce. Unless you'd rather speak with Burton-Lee.

Courage draining, Morgan summoned a final bluster:

—I do wish you'd quit flapping like hens and get it over with.

He stepped forward and touched the toes of his slippers.

—Dressing gown off, Rabbet said.

Morgan stood, sighed contemptuously, and removed his dressing gown. Rabbet passed the cane to Kilby.

—Bend over, Kilby said sonorously.

Morgan did, feeling a chill.

—Let's start with six and see how we get on.

*   *   *

John dropped his satchel at the foot of his staircase, collected his post, and retreated to the Keys. The room was more crowded than usual, and Polly informed him that they were out of pies. Tea at the Academy had been inedible, and John felt frantic. Would peas and chips do? Polly asked. They would, John replied gratefully, they would indeed. He collapsed into his usual seat and massaged the base of his skull.

The day was over. He'd marked three sets of books during Prep. Only agreeable things remained.

Polly brought him his tea, and he ran his penknife under the flap of an envelope addressed in his goddaughter's hand. Enclosed was a sketch: two figures (“you & me!”) fishing for … stars? (“a fishey picknick in boats”). His eyes stung. Things were getting better, and not just generally. The afternoon had delivered his first affirmative encounter with Wilberforce since last term. The boy had taken John's batting advice and appeared buoyed by the results. He would likely be stiff and sore after the day's practice, but tomorrow John would present a regime of exercises and stretching.

The hubbub in the room was growing louder as debate about the looming strike turned to quarrel. John knew he should be concerned about the plight of the miners, and he was of course—of
course
—but Wilberforce had listened to him! John had managed to say the right things and in the right tone. Rehabilitation had begun. For once John felt neither restive nor grim, but only rather pleasantly drained, as he had felt at Marlborough in the good season, when the younger boys had looked to him for direction and he had given it with the kind of warmth and rigor the Bishop had shown him.

It didn't necessarily follow that he'd abandoned every single thing. Maybe some things, the good things, were such a part of his fabric that they couldn't be discarded.

It was a thought.

 

22

Waking up in the morning ought to be banned. It was getting light at all kinds of indecent hours, and even before first bell it was bright enough to make one's head hurt. Morgan hauled himself from bed and went to the toilets.

Everything hurt, more than it had a right to for one of his experience. As the bell rang, he braced himself for the tasks of the morning: washing, dressing, sitting through lessons. They hadn't stopped at six, not that he'd seriously expected it. At least they'd refrained from jawing afterwards. Rabbet had passed him his dressing gown without a word, an atmosphere of unease settling upon them rather than the catharsis corporal punishment usually provided. Morgan left without looking at any of them, his heart beating everywhere at once, his mind focused on regaining control. He knew he'd gone too far with the backchat, but the results had been more than he'd bargained for. From the awed silence amongst the JCR, he wondered whether Kilby's performance had been more than they'd bargained for, too.

As he'd returned to the dorm afterwards, alone in the half-lit corridor, he'd sensed someone beside him. He saw nothing, but he could feel a warm arm bumping against his. The second boy was with him, not to gloat or to criticize but rather it seemed in fellowship, matching Morgan's gait as if he were returning from the same disastrous ordeal. He offered no comment, but Morgan felt this one knew his distress—provoked in equal measure by the despicable JCR and by his own foolish self.

But that was all rubbish that belonged to the previous evening. Now he had to face the ruthlessness of day. On the way to the chapel, he had to pass Kilby; at prayers he had to listen to Barlow's announcements about changes to the afternoon's cricket matches; in Primus he had to face the Eagle's viva on prosody, for which he was unprepared. Droit appeared at this point and cursed the Eagle for his intemperate demands and Barlow for meddling with the cricket timetable. Droit said nothing of the JCR's crimes the night before, but he let Morgan know that they would not be thwarted. Morgan wanted to put his head in his hands. The bench was hard and close to the front of the room. If ever he deserved a bit of anonymity in the back, it was today. Droit told him to quit whingeing and focus on essential matters, namely Polly and her cunning fingers. Thanks to Barlow, the afternoon was impossible, but this evening, being Saturday, afforded ample time. What Morgan had to do, Droit explained, was recruit Nathan and Laurie. He need not visit the Cross Keys alone to canoodle with Polly. If his friends were there, they might usefully engage Polly's father in conversation whilst Morgan and Polly got on with things in the kitchen.

Morgan wondered whether he ought to bring Polly a present. What did one bring a girl when courting her? Flowers? Droit was in his element now. First, he explained, flowers were bulky and thus out of the question. Second, they were not courting Polly, they were seducing her. Nevertheless, it wouldn't hurt to bring an offering. Sweets from the tuckshop? A bit ordinary perhaps, but Droit explained it was all in the presentation. Polly would be delighted if Morgan made up his mind to delight her.

—Apostrophe, the Eagle said. Wilberforce?

—Sir?

—Stand up, boy. And try to wake up while you're at it.

He stood by degrees, cursing Kilby and every JCR in existence. The Eagle repeated the word he wanted defined. Morgan glanced around, but no help arrived.

—Apostrophes show possession, sir, or missing letters.

—Very witty, the Eagle rejoined. And where is the apostrophe in, say,
Batter My Heart Three-person'd God?

He was on weak sand.

—Before the
d
in
person'd
, sir?

The Eagle marked his ledger:

—Another minus. At this rate, the entire form is headed for extra-tu.

A clamor of protest erupted. Extra-tu wasn't possible, sir. They had cricket. Some of them were in the first match, others in the second, and yet more in the third. The rest had been recruited to referee or keep score. Surely Mr. Lockett-Egan had heard the Head say that attendance was compulsory at all matches. They simply had no time!

And anyway, it wasn't fair, sir. They'd only just returned from the hols. It wasn't fair for the Eagle to expect them to remember so much from the Fourth. That was two years ago, sir! The Eagle reminded them that there had been prosody on their Remove last summer, but they protested it was still too long ago. And anyway, sir, how could they be expected to keep words straight when they had more than one meaning?

—Wilberforce wasn't wrong about
apostrophe
, sir, Laurie argued. And if you'd given him another chance, I'm sure he would have said what you meant him to say, that the apostrophe is the speaker addressing God, which is more or less what he did say.

The Eagle was at the end of his tether, which Laurie muttered must be rather a short tether since it was not yet nine o'clock of a Saturday morning. The Eagle showered them with invective and then commanded them to copy out, again, pages four through seven of their poetry primers, to be passed in Monday morning, no exceptions, on pain of visit to his study, which, he assured them, would deprive no one of cricket as he didn't approve of caning across the hand.

Morgan spent the remainder of the period uncomfortable in his seat but diverted, at least, by Droit's double entendres as Morgan copied definitions for
metonymy
and
synecdoche
,
apostrophe
,
anaphora
,
antonomasia
, and any number of nonsense terms.

*   *   *

—Wilberforce, Mr. Grieves said, a word.

It was barely half past nine; Morgan needed a cup of tea more than life itself, and here was bloody Grieves calling him out of his own lesson before it had even begun, no doubt to bollock him in the corridor like some oversize tyro. If Grieves thought he would get a reaction, he was bloody well mistaken.

The man closed the door and crossed his arms:

—I would appreciate it, Wilberforce, if you would leave me out of your egregious deceptions in future.

Morgan squinted.

—I don't enjoy being accosted by Prefects of Hall first thing in the morning and asked why I saw fit to extend my nonexistent conference with you into evening prayers.

Morgan examined the brickwork.

—Take your hands out of your pockets and do me the decency of speaking to me when I ask you a question, Mr. Grieves snapped.

—What was the question, sir?

—You are on the thinnest ice, Wilberforce!

—Already, sir?

Mr. Grieves flinched, but then, rather than explode, he wrenched open the classroom door and stormed inside.

*   *   *

Something was the matter with his digestion. Everything that John put in his mouth—and that wasn't much—soured his stomach, yet fasting left him light-headed and fractious. What's more, it seemed his colleagues were laboring under similarly strained nerves. John felt that the departure of the Board's accountants would offer some relief, but the Eagle demurred.

—It's a classic scapegoating, he told John at break. The books are a disaster, and since the Board will never admit lack of oversight, they'll fasten onto Burton and wring him till the pips squeak, as the saying goes.

John thought there might be something the matter with the cream in his coffee.

—Germany hasn't proved a very productive lemon under Allied squeezing, he said, so I can't imagine why they think Burton will pull missing funds out of a hat.

—Exactly, the Eagle concluded.

John thought it prudent not to reveal that he was once again failing to follow matters of accountancy and politics. He understood the undercurrents of the Board vs. Burton about as much as he understood the complexities of the TUC vs. Whitehall (or was it the Miners vs. the Mine Owners, or the Proletariat vs. the Capitalists?); that was to say, not much.

John wondered if it was his imagination or whether the world really was growing more irrational and more perilous with each passing month. A better man than he would be teaching at the slum school in London, serving those poor wretches whose fathers, in all likelihood, would soon take violently to the streets protesting wages and conditions down the mines. As it was, John's most pressing responsibilities were his last two lessons of the day and his unofficial maneuvering on the sidelines of the cricket, both enough to turn his stomach. What had ever happened to standing against the world, resolute before white feathers, zealous and bold?

John left his coffee and went to splash cold water on his face. The sooner someone put him out of his misery the better.

*   *   *

The Headmaster pro tem upset their luncheon with a scandalous announcement: Saturday evenings would run differently henceforth. Tonight after tea, the school would repair to the gymnasium. There call-over would occur, and there, the Headmaster pro tem was pleased to announce, they would enjoy a moving picture. Burton perhaps misinterpreted the murmurs of consternation, for he smiled and assured them that the wonders of cinema had indeed arrived at St. Stephen's Academy. Tonight, in common with city cinema—

—Proper cinema, Laurie mumbled.

—they would be shown a newsreel, after which they would have the very considerable pleasure of viewing—

—I'd rather be viewing the backs of my eyes, Morgan groaned.

The Headmaster pro tem informed them that REN had gone to considerable trouble to procure the equipment and reels; he asked them to join him in offering Mr. Eton-Knowles their hearty thanks.

Morgan cursed at length but decided the Flea's announcement need not prove a disaster. They had not been deterred by Barlow's fiddling with the Games timetable, and they wouldn't be undone by the Flea's cinematic ambitions. Morgan needed to relax before he did something drastic.

That afternoon Droit appeared on the sidelines wearing spotless flannels and smoking a French cigarette. Interspersed among droll remarks about the SCR and criticism of the batting, bowling, and fielding of both sides, Droit revealed his Cunning Solution. With Nathan and Laurie they would attend call-over and then slip out once the lights had gone off. The gym would be a sardine box, and none of them would be missed. Morgan declared that he was in no mood for another dose from the JCR, but Droit instructed him to buck up. If Morgan would merely keep his eye on the ball, figuratively and, yes, literally, now as a matter of fact, minding his head—