Wilberforce (33 page)

Morgan recoiled and flailed the bat before his face. A thwack and a clatter. He spun around to see the off stump toppled to the ground.

He had dragged the ball on. His chest clenched. A ripple of applause for the bowler, and Nathan appeared, bat in hand:

—That was close. He almost nobbed you. Who knew Bux had a bouncer?

Morgan's lungs strained.

—What's the matter? Nathan asked.

Morgan staggered from the pitch. The air was too thick. He needed to sit down out of the sun.

Inside the mildewed pavilion, he collapsed on a bench and put his head in his hands. The ball had nearly hit him, and then it had gone right past. For the first time in his life, he'd been out for a duck, and a golden one at that. Bux wasn't even a bowler of note; he'd never been anything but Spaulding's lieutenant, but just now he'd bowled as if … It made no sense. He couldn't bear to think about it.

Only a child would complain about Bux. Only a child would expect justice from the world. Certainly it had been wrong for Spaulding to die, but did that mean it was right for other people to do it? Criminals, perhaps, but others? The Old Boys in Long Passage were said to have made a great sacrifice, but from the way everyone behaved, especially those who'd known them, their so-called sacrifice seemed like a monstrosity. If it was wrong for his mother to have died at the age of forty-four, did that mean it was right for Nathan's grandfather to have died at eighty-nine? Justice, plainly, had nothing to do with death.

He could sometimes feel his mother very near, and he could recall, somewhere not in his mind, her lips on his forehead, her whistling of hymns as she moved through the house, the way she would come and sit on the edge of his bed when he called in the night, listening to his dreams and then recasting them, whimsical or heroic. Was she really not waiting at home, having merely been delayed, hungry for everything Morgan could tell her?

The world was ill to the core.

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. His chest still stabbed, but he was managing to breathe. His father, too, was breathing, and his sisters, not to mention Spaulding's lieutenants and his Captain of Games. They were all of them breathing: Veronica, Emily, Flora, Bux, Ledge, Andrewes, Morgan himself. This carrying on was nothing short of perversion.

Applause filtered through the cracked window. Nathan had either scored or been bowled out. It was hot. Perhaps he had heatstroke. Perhaps he was unfit, on some level, for living.

The bench teetered as weight settled at the other end. Morgan didn't turn, but he could feel him, an arm's length away, the other boy.

—I don't know who you are, Morgan said aloud, and I don't know what you want.

He pressed thumbs against his eyebrows and the icy pain there. The other boy said nothing, as usual.

—You've got bad manners at any rate, Morgan muttered.

If he was going to start cracking up, he might as well do it properly.

The bench didn't wobble, but the boy moved near and rested elbows on knees. A lock of dark hair escaped his cap. This boy wasn't gauche, not really, but he wasn't Droit, not shrewd, not witty or worldly. Morgan didn't know what to call him; he was simply … the other one.

With dusty hands, the boy removed his cap, a Lower School cap in Morgan's House colors. His arm did not touch Morgan's, but Morgan could feel its heat through the fabric of his sleeve, just as he could feel the pressure of this boy's leg against his own. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the boy's palm, bruised from play, and the name tag inside his cap. Written in ink neither blue nor black but a smeary red, the letters
I
,
A
,
M
 … that was all he could read.

 

23

Some days John wasn't sure whether he was employed by a public school or by a training camp for young cricketers. They'd spent more hours playing cricket that term than they'd spent aggregate on any game since 1919.

All right, but if he couldn't indulge in a little hyperbole, what could he do? Nothing worthwhile was happening in the classrooms, but at least conduct hadn't deteriorated further. Burton had been relentless in his Arnoldian pursuit of Games, and the ceaseless cricket had been joined by cross-country, fives, and even badminton. At first the boys ridiculed the badminton, but Burton directed the DCs to work up ladders and offer prizes. Observing the success of prizes with the badminton, Burton introduced them for running and for achievements in cricket. Rewards took the form of points, which could be used as credit in the tuckshop. The Upper School regarded the prizes with thick irony, but the Lower School began to compete for them. John knew that no amount of busy athleticism could ameliorate grief, much less eliminate unsavory practices, but since all this compelled vigorous exercise daily, it went a long way towards draining their energies.

And it happened that the cricket was improving. John couldn't deny that it would make a good impression come Patron's Day in June, nor could he deny feeling a certain vindication watching the game work upon their characters. Jamie had always been philistine about cricket.
There's nothing to it
, he'd declare.
Their men lob cork at your men, repeat until ten wickets fall or your side wins.
People were always scandalized, but that, John supposed, had been the point.

John himself was no cricket sage, but given St. Stephen's aging SCR, he could do more on the pitch than most. If he were the genuine article, he would be coaching them not merely to hit a cork, but to understand the delicate art of building a partnership, two batsmen coming together, watching each other down the pitch, taking their runs and jointly building a fine total, their change of ends after each over bringing the side one step closer to a famous win. And then he would throw in the technical aspects—the off stump of your wicket is the most important of the three, the most difficult and critical to defend—except his remarks would ring beyond the cricket pitch, echoing into the battles they were all of them fighting without even realizing it.

It seemed a great injustice that no competent authority existed to educate St. Stephen's boys physically, intellectually, or morally. When he was at school, they had ridiculed every master for one foible or another, but he had always regarded his masters as reliable on the most basic level. They possessed a mastery of their magisteria beyond reproach. The ways of those men may frequently have been incomprehensible, but there had been reason and experience behind them. The two times John remembered being punished unfairly by a master (once at prep and once at Marlborough) happened because the master in question had been unaware of his circumstances or motives. Boy justice, by contrast, was often unfair, and often an instrument of vendetta. Men were above this. They knew what they were about and had something to impart.

Now that John was a man himself—at least he knew he had to consider himself one; he'd turned thirty in January—he felt he'd somehow fallen into perpetrating a magnificent fraud. Some amongst his colleagues knew their subject matters deeply—Burton-Lee, the Eagle, and Clement—and some possessed a talent for imparting that knowledge—Burton-Lee, the Eagle … actually, just those two. He didn't condemn his colleagues whole cloth; he observed each of them doing something of value daily (or at least weekly?). The trouble was, he didn't think any of them had anything authoritative to convey. They were busking. Circumstance demanded he act the role of master, yet he was painfully aware of how poor a specimen he was.

*   *   *

Polly had let him do almost everything except the thing boys aimed to do with a girl. Little else occupied his mind but the sight, touch, and taste of those parts of her body she kept concealed beneath her clothing. She was coy on the topic of actual … what to call it? Nathan called it
making love
, which struck Morgan as abstract. Morgan wasn't sure if he loved Polly enough to marry her, but she was very pretty, and he was very fond of her. Laurie referred to the act as
coitus
, a term surely too academic for such a girl.
The Pearl
employed a plethora of verbs, all of them unthinkable vis-à-vis Polly.

Surely the point, Droit mused as they watched the First XI play Pocklington, was not what to call the act, but how to achieve it. And if Morgan was still clinging to the hope that Polly would raise the subject, then it was high time he stopped dreaming. No decent girl would ever suggest
l'amour complet
unprompted.
L'amour complet!
Morgan liked the term. It had continental flair. Furthermore, it made clear that while lesser acts might spring from
l'amour
, it was necessary to penetrate the final barrier to achieve romantic completion. How, though, to raise the subject without coming off a cad?

Droit did not reply, but in Morgan's experience, Droit operated best in the fray. He excelled at appearing just when needed to provide the crucial insight. Morgan decided to leave entirely to Droit the achievement of
l'amour complet
.

Once imagined, however, it was difficult to evict from his mind. Would he at last succeed in acquiring the experience so many of his schoolfellows had long since possessed? More important, when could his thirst be quenched? At first it had been enough to see her two or three times a week, drinking in her mouth, exploring, being explored in return, but once he'd experienced release at her hands, it became agonizing to leave her presence without that solace. Now it seemed impossible to endure another day without the full feast of
l'amour complet
. Surely she would not deny him if he could propose it in a way that made it seem delightful?

More immediately, he needed to raise money. To succeed even so far as he had with Polly, it had been necessary for him, Nathan, and Laurie to expand their visits to the Keys, and since the visits were mostly for Morgan's benefit, he bought the lion's share of the rounds. It had grown expensive keeping Nathan in pints—his thirst grew in response to the drain that Alex had become—and Morgan had nearly exhausted his whole term's pocket money. He'd had already written to each of his sisters and had used up the funds they'd sent. He could borrow from Colin, who ran a bank alongside his distillery, but the interest was steep. His final hope was his grandmother in Devon; he'd never asked her for money before, and he needed a story that would convince her to open her purse to him without informing his father.

What he needed to do, Droit informed him, was find a service no one else was providing and provide it.

Well, obviously that was what he needed to do, Morgan retorted, and if Droit had any suggestions, Morgan implored him not to be shy.

If Morgan was going to get sarcastic, Droit had other business.

Morgan assured Droit that the sarcasm was unintentional.

Droit lit a cigarette and observed that Polly's father was forever arranging wagers for his customers on the outcomes of various bouts and matches; he seemed to keep his customers happy whilst earning a tidy sum for himself.

Morgan reminded Droit that the Headmaster pro tem had come down heavily when he'd discovered betting in the badminton ladders.

Droit implored Morgan to try a more creative angle. Obviously, wagers within the Academy were not only vulnerable to general enthusiasm, rendering them too visible and too common, but they were also amply supplied by Colin and by Alex. (Yes, of course, Alex had resumed after the badminton. Was Morgan willfully blind?) But, Droit continued, no one at the Academy was offering proper wagers, wagers with proper men on cricket matches played in the outside world. If Morgan could interest a few of those with cash to spare, then he could act as go-between, placing wagers for them at the Keys, returning them real winnings from the real world, and earning himself a fair commission. He might even advise his clients on reasonable bets and give them a taste of winning from the start. Morgan sat speechless as Pocklington's bowler took Andrewes's wicket and Droit exchanged his cigarette for a glass of Pimm's.

 

24

Rain was forecast for Patron's Day, but John had hopes it might not materialize. Since Burton had taken pains to ensure the ranks of Old Boys included the able-bodied, John also had hopes that the match would for once not prove embarrassing. Ever since the War, masters had been drafted to fill out the Old Boy side, but this year Burton assured the SCR that their services would not be required, with the exception of John, whom the Old Boys expected as their captain. John was disturbed to read amongst the replies the odious names of Bradley, Fletcher, and Frick major. Frick had come every year, as his brother Colin was still at the school, but this would be Bradley's first appearance. Until today, John had allowed himself to imagine that Bradley had disintegrated like a bad dream. He was not looking forward to playing cricket with the creature.

The First XI were beginning to look respectable, particularly the House Captains (Andrewes, Radcliffe, and Barlow—though Ward continued to disappoint). They hadn't yet won any matches against other schools, but they'd easily defeat the Old Boys. It wasn't unreasonable to hope that, buoyed by that success, the XI would acquit themselves well against St. Peter's the following week and perhaps even win that match.

Burton, predictably, was in a flap about the day. In addition to parents and a hefty turnout of Old Boys (some of whom, John suspected, had returned to see for themselves what had become of the Academy in its tragedies), several of the Board were expected. For a time, it was rumored that S-K himself might come, but Burton informed the SCR on the morning that the Headmaster had sent his regrets, or rather, someone had sent regrets for him. Burton affected disappointment, but John could see he was relieved. S-K's presence would have been impossibly confusing. It was going to be hard enough for Burton to convince everyone—Old Boys, Board, the school itself—that his government was at last under control and moving the Academy in a profitable direction, that the Second Age was under way. What's more, Burton surely realized that Patron's Day would be his final audition for the post of Headmaster. This would be the Board's first visit since the distasteful swooping of its accountants at the start of term. Apparently, the visiting Board members would stay the night and spend the following day closeted with the Headmaster (pro tem) to review the conclusions of the auditors and presumably the future of the school. It was no wonder Burton's nerves were frayed, but (as John would have informed him if asked) his snappiness was making it difficult for his staff to be congenial.