Wilberforce (37 page)

A mass lifted from his chest. He never got let off anything, but he was going to be let off this. He wasn't going to have to bat, wasn't going to have to stand near Bradley, and nothing was going to wreck the original point of the day, which was Polly. If the other one had been at his elbow, he would have been wondering whether Morgan was more relieved to be spared Bradley or Grieves himself, but the brat was
not
there, so he could just take his gauche ideas and … direct them at the pitch where the spectators had found something to gasp about. Morgan stepped around the veranda. The batsman, dumbfounded, was looking around for explanation. Bradley lay on the grass, holding the ball aloft in triumph. The umpire raised the finger. Morgan's stomach lurched.

—Hang on, Wilberforce, Andrewes said jogging over to him. I'm putting Radcliffe in.

Morgan flushed. After ruining his day, Andrewes now proposed to let Radcliffe go in? He slammed his bat to the ground.

Always obey your captain without question.

Andrewes stood beside him, arms crossed, as the match trudged towards its inevitable conclusion. Radcliffe, in now with Buxton, was hitting the ball, some lazy codger was shuffling after it, Rad and Bux were taking a run, and Bradley was shouting at the codger to move it. Only when they'd taken three did the codger manage to get the ball to Bradley, who did not bother to conceal his frustration and disgust.

—Am I next? Morgan asked Andrewes.

—I'll go, Andrewes replied. You come in last.

No jilting ever felt like this. Andrewes broke a crooked smile:

—It'll be up to us to finish them off.

Morgan tore off his pads. With only ten runs to win and three more wickets to fall, he would never bat. He found himself glancing to the left, looking for the one who fed on his humiliations like a vampire. This, surely, was the time for him to appear with his doleful eyes, eyes Morgan longed to punch until they dimmed black and sank. But instead of glimpsing that boy, Morgan saw that Alex had drifted over to the pavilion and was chatting to one of the XI. Alex met his gaze. His mouth soured.

—Oi, Andrewes said, what's this?

The XI leapt to their feet, and an energetic burst of applause announced that the spectators had not after all abandoned the match. Bux's wicket had fallen, and worse, Grieves had emerged from the pavilion. Alex elbowed closer as Grieves strode across the lawn rolling down his sleeve, his shirt damp at the shoulder. Morgan sat down in disgust.

A flinty conversation ensued between the umpire, Grieves, and Andrewes. Finally, Grieves relieved the bowler and Andrewes trotted back to the pavilion.

—Enough mucking about, he announced severely. Sort yourself out, Wilberforce. If you have to come in, for God's sake keep your eye on the ball, and don't you dare funk it no matter how fast he bowls.

—Right.

Andrewes hauled him to his feet:

—I am dead serious, Wilberforce. If you let that ball past, I will personally thrash you until you bawl.

Morgan couldn't decide whether to be insulted or flattered. He didn't doubt that Andrewes meant it, but he didn't need threats to rouse him. The promise of humiliation was enough.

*   *   *

He was sick to death of being treated like a pawn. He might be a lowly undermaster, but he was still a freeborn Englishman with all the rights due him. Those rights included not being saddled with noxious Old Boys; not being issued directives (
sort out the cricket
) without why or wherefore; not having to bowl unaided for hours while an inebriated side fielded like a flock of mental defectives; and it included the right not to have pestilence from the past thrust up his nose at lunch sans explanation of any kind. Last, finally, and paramount, he, John Grieves, had the right as Captain and as a human being to spend ten minutes in the pavilion applying a cold compress to his shoulder without being harassed by the Headmaster pro tem and asked what exactly he was playing at.

—I'm playing at cricket, thank you very much, and if you expect me to give the XI even a shred of difficulty during the last half hour, I advise you to return to your guests and leave me in peace.

Burton had turned a color that usually preceded volcanic talkings-to, but by some grace he left before saying anything at all. Out of principle, John had remained in the pavilion five more minutes until he felt a chill coming on. Only then had he emerged to do battle with whichever batsmen still remained to the XI.

He made a point of not looking where he knew Burton and the person were sitting. There was simply no energy to spare them beyond cursing their astronomical impertinence. What he needed to contend with was Bradley, a person John knew to have practiced a level of turpitude that even now made his stomach turn. A better man than he would stop the match and denounce Bradley before the assembly. John wanted to do that. He knew he ought to do that. But he didn't do it. To make matters worse, Bradley had proved an efficient wicketkeeper, and bowling to him made John feel like a conspirator. A call had been made early in the innings for an alternate wicketkeeper, but after seeing John bowl, no one but Bradley had the nerve to stand in the firing line and catch what John was sending down. Now, as John took the ball, Bradley came forward to confer.

—Thank Christ you're back, Bradley muttered.

An instinct to grin competed with the desire to excoriate Bradley for blasphemy.

—Radcliffe's batting hair-trigger. Andrewes coming in now. Watch for the pull shot.

—Yes, I know, John said testily.

—Last is Wilberforce, if it comes to that.

—Oh, it will, John declared.

Bradley gawked at him, struck pleasantly speechless. John waved him back to the wicket and shook out his arm as Andrewes approached the pitch.

*   *   *

Grieves was bowling like a demon. Obviously he'd been sacrificing babies in the pavilion because he was throwing faster than Morgan had ever seen. Andrewes and Radcliffe got a couple of runs off him, but then Grieves hurled the ball so fast they barely saw it. The next moment, Radcliffe's wicket lay shattered on the pitch, and Radcliffe himself lay crumpled before it.

—Blood-y hell! cried Alex. Grieves hit Radcliffe!

Indeed it seemed that Grieves's ball had clipped Radcliffe's foot before taking the wicket. The XI rumbled mutinously, but eventually Radcliffe limped off the field under his own steam. Morgan checked his pads. Alex handed him the bat:

—Good luck.

Morgan walked away from Alex and took his place in front of the one person he wanted never to see.

—Well, Bradley murmured, look who it is.

Morgan refused to look at him. He looked at the crowd. He looked down the pitch at Grieves, dusty with the soil of play. He looked at Andrewes, bat in hand, ready to run, training his attention on Morgan as if sheer willpower could make him hit the ball. Morgan squared his shoulders.

—You and Andrewes last, eh? Think you can score eight before Grievesy breaks another foot?

Always smile in all circumstances.

—My money, Bradley continued, says the Old Boys are about to win for the first time this century.

—Shut up, Morgan hissed.

Bradley laughed, and then Grieves thundered forward, the ball whizzed towards Morgan, and the bat flew from his hands.

Technically he'd hit the ball, but it didn't go far, and he wasn't able to run. His hands tingled like the time he had stuck a finger in one of Uncle Charles's electrical sockets. He shook out his arm, picked up the bat, and fixed his eye on Grieves. That Bradley stood so close he could smell his aftershave had no bearing on the moment. His murmurs and his looks were even less pertinent.

Never forget that the wicketkeeper is just as capable of getting you out as the bowler.

Morgan pressed his shoulder down and visualized his left arm swinging up. Grieves jogged forward.

Always face the fast stuff with courage and be happy in the thought that you have not funked it.

Again a brutal impact, but this time he kept his grip. A deep thwack, more bone-tickling vibrations, and the ball sailed over Grieves's head into a gap. Morgan bolted away from Bradley, towards Grieves, bat to crease—then back, coming home, Bradley's face in that almost-smile that could make him—bat to crease—

—Oh, Dicky.

—Come! Andrewes called.

He ran away, back to Grieves—bat to crease—

—Wait!

Stumbling to a stop, he panted. The ball returned to Grieves.

Morgan had taken three runs, and now Andrewes was at the striker's end. Bradley, no longer hidden behind his back, openly regarded him across the pitch. His elbow still thwanged. Rallying what remained of his sanity, Morgan cleaved his attention from Bradley and thrust it onto Grieves.

Thorn and enigma—in the classroom Grieves possessed a freakish concentration, and on the field, his face wore a permanent scowl. He polished the ball, positioned the seam, and practiced his wrist movement without even appearing to think, his gaze trained on Andrewes and the wicket he guarded.

Silk once claimed that all the good men were dead. He'd always behaved as if nothing truly mattered. But here was a man for whom things mattered, a man who had interfered with Morgan's time and his cricket, a man who was playing with the Old Boys as if the good of the world hung in the balance, a man who bowled as if he were capable of murder. Grieves thundered past, and for one delusionary moment Morgan yearned to stand in his way, to feel that resolve compelling Morgan past everything that kept him in shackles.

A cry from the crowd, and Andrewes was barreling his way. Morgan ran towards Andrewes and past him, into the arms of—

—Wait, Silk said.

Not the arms! Not even as a figure of—

—Wait! Andrewes called.

Morgan turned to Silk and gulped for breath. Knowing and known, still and yet—a face that knew the malice of life, a person who had himself found a head draining blood, who might be the only person in the world to understand, when life leaked out and he watched it, helpless before the shadow that took every good thing—

—Look alive, Dicky!

Silk raised his gloves, and Morgan turned to see Grieves hurling a missile. He wasn't ready, and all he could do was put his bat—

It connected. He followed through with the stroke, such as it was, but then—a muddle—the bat was in his hands and also on the ground with the ball. The shock rang in his elbows, high-pitched and nauseating. Andrewes began to run but stopped.

Morgan was mistaken about the bat. The wicket, not the bat, lay at his feet. The game was over and Morgan had lost it. Helpless, crushed, hubbub around him. The umpire was speaking, and Silk was stepping forward to pick up the stumps.

—Blimey, he said. Can't believe you stopped that.

Bux trotted over from the pavilion. Grieves jogged down the pitch.

—Are you all right, Wilberforce? Grieves asked.

—Of course, I am.

How dare Grieves treat him like a girl who'd burst into tears at defeat? Evidently, it was the treatment he deserved, he who let the Old Boys win for the first time this century.

—You pulverized it, sir! Bux exclaimed taking the stumps from Silk.

Only they weren't the stumps. They were the pieces of what had been Morgan's bat, the bat whose handle was still in his hands. He looked to the umpire.

—Am I out?

—Don't be stupid, Bux said, handing Morgan another bat.

Then Bux was jogging away, and everyone was switching ends for the next over. Silk shouldered past him:

—Well stuck, Dicky.

The spectators began talking loudly.

He wasn't out. He hadn't lost the match. But Silk's words lingered, stinging his eyes, the intolerable heat of praise he no longer craved, no longer ate. That age was as dead as the War, that cloister where the night and the study door hid them from the world, when Silk behaved with him as he behaved with no one else.

Sanity! Sanity! Battalions to posts! He was with Grieves now, at his end, his rule. Here Grieves ran, flinging the ball like a catapult. And here Morgan returned after Andrewes took two more runs. This was his end, this prickly domain, governed by a man who might care for Morgan as little as he cared for anyone, but a man now sauntering past him, polishing the ball and looking at him curiously.

—I'm letting Andrewes off easy, Grieves was saying, but don't imagine I'll give up the match without making you work for it.

And something crossed his face—gone before it registered. Grieves waited a moment before breaking his gaze, long enough to let Morgan know the truth: that his resolve had all along been trained upon Morgan, ordaining him to do the things he secretly wanted to do.

Grieves turned away and gestured to his field to pull it back. Then he bowled Andrewes a slow long-hop down the leg side. Andrewes, impatient for the win, struck. They ran, but as soon as Morgan's bat touched the crease, Silk took the ball from the air.

They drew themselves up. Silk threw him the stabbing smile.

—So, Dicky, it's come to this.

Morgan's heart pounded, his arms empty. Silk returned the ball to Grieves.

—Game tied, Silk murmured. Yours to decide.

Trapped again and still! At his left elbow, Grieves lined up to hurl the hardest ball he'd ever bowled; at his right, Silk Bradley waited to drag him under. Morgan turned to Silk and looked him in the eye, two hundred forty volts current direct:

—Why are you here, Bradley? Why did you come?

Silk's face slackened, as if they were alone, no one's eyes upon them, as if he were the person he'd shown to Morgan and Morgan alone.

—Do you have to ask, Dicky?

But Droit was behind him, breathing in his ear:

—
A breathless hush in the close tonight. One to make and the last man in
—

—Shut up.

Grieves was starting his run-up.