Part 9 (1/2)

He interrupted. 'I've been speaking to your GP. A Dr Be vans?'

'Bevans. I know him well. 1975 to 1979. Bright lad. Got an A in Latin. Read medicine at Durham.'

'Quite.' The syllable spoke volumes in disapproval. 'He tells me he's been concerned about you for some time.'

'Really?'

'Yes.'

Drat it. That's what comes of giving boys a Cla.s.sical education. They turn against you, the little swine, they turn against you and before you know what's happening, you're on a fat-free diet, wearing sweatpants and checking out the old people's homes.

'So, tell me the worst. What does the little upstart recommend this time? Hot ale? Magnetism? Leeches? I remember when he was in my form, little round boy, always in trouble. And now he's telling me what to do?'

'He's very fond of you, Mr Straitley.'

Here it comes, I thought.

'But you're sixty-five years old--'

'Sixty-four. My birthday's on November the fifth. Bonfire Night.'

He dismissed Bonfire Night with a shake of his head. 'And you seem to think you can go on for ever as you always have--'

'What's the alternative? Exposure on a rocky crag?'

The doctor sighed. 'I'm sure an educated man like yourself could find retirement both rewarding and stimulating. You could take up a hobby--'

A hobby, forsooth! 'I'm not retiring.'

'Be reasonable, Mr Straitley--'

St Oswald's has been my world for over thirty years. What else is there? I sat up on the trolley bed and swung my legs over the side. 'I feel fine.'

Thursday, 30th September POOR OLD STRAITLEY. I WENT TO SEE HIM, YOU KNOW, AS soon as school finished, and found that he'd already checked himself out of the cardiac ward, to the disapproval of the staff. But his address was in the St Oswald's handbook, so I went there instead, bringing with me a little pot plant I had bought at the hospital shop.

I'd never seen him out of character before. An old man, I realized, with an old man's white stubble under his chin and an old man's bony white feet in battered leather slippers. He seemed almost touchingly pleased to see me. 'But you needn't have worried,' he declared, 'I'll be back in the morning.'

'Really? So soon?' I almost loved him for it; but I was concerned, too. I'm enjoying our game too much to let him slip away on a stupid principle. 'Shouldn't you rest, at least for a few days?'

'Don't you start,' he said. 'I've had enough of that from the hospital. Take up a hobby, he says -- something quiet like taxidermy or macrame -- G.o.ds, why doesn't he just hand me the hemlock bowl and have done with it?'

I thought he was over-dramatizing, and said so.

'Well,' said Straitley, pulling a face. 'It's what I'm good at.'

His house is a tiny two-up, two-down mid-terrace about ten minutes' walk from St Oswald's. The hallway is stacked high with books - some on shelves, others not - so that the original colour of the wallpaper is almost impossible to detect. The carpets are worn right down to the weft, except in the parlour, where lurks the ghost of a brown Axminster. It smells of dust and polish and the dog that died five years ago; a big school radiator in the hallway throws out an unforgiving blast of heat; there is a kitchen with a floor of mosaic tiles; and, covering every sc.r.a.p of uncluttered wall, a mult.i.tude of cla.s.s photographs.

He offered me tea in a St Oswald's mug, and some dubious-looking chocolate digestives from a tin on the mantelpiece. I noticed that he looks smaller at home.

'How's Anderton-Pullitt?' Apparently he'd been asking the same question every ten minutes at the hospital, even after the boy was out of danger. 'Did they find out what happened?'

I shook my head. 'I'm sure no one blames you, Mr Straitley.'

'That isn't the point.'

And it wasn't; the pictures on the walls said as much, with their double rows of young faces; I wondered whether Leon might be among them somewhere. What would I do if I saw his face now, in Straitley's house? And what would I do if I saw myself beside him, cap crammed over my eyes, blazer b.u.t.toned tightly over my second-hand s.h.i.+rt?

'Misfortune comes in groups of three,' said Straitley, reaching for a biscuit, then changing his mind. 'First Fallow, now Anderton-Pullitt - I'm waiting to see what the next one will be.'

I smiled. 'I had no idea you were superst.i.tious, sir.'

'Superst.i.tious? It comes with the territory.' He took the biscuit after all, and dipped it in his tea. 'You can't work at St Oswald's for as long as I have without believing in signs and portents and--'

'Ghosts?' I suggested slyly.

He did not return my smile. 'Of course,' he said. 'The b.l.o.o.d.y place is full of them.' I wondered for a moment if he was thinking of my father. Or Leon. For a moment, I wondered if I was one myself.

IT WAS DURING THAT SUMMER THAT JOHN SNYDE BEGAN slowly and inconspicuously -- to unravel. Small things at first, barely noticeable within the greater picture of my life, where Leon loomed large and everything else was reduced to a series of vague constructions on a far and hazy horizon. But as July waxed and the end of term came closer, his temper, always a presence, became a constant.

Most of all, I remember his anger. That summer, it seemed, my father was always in a rage. At me; at the School; at the mysterious graffiti artists who spray-painted the side of the Games Pavilion. At the junior boys who called out at him as he rode the big lawn-mower. At the two older boys who had ridden it that time, and who had caused him to receive an official reprimand. At the neighbours' dogs, who left small unwanted presents on the cricket lawn, which he had to remove using a rolled-up plastic bag and a paper tissue. At the government; at the landlord of the pub; at the people who moved over to the other side of the pavement to avoid him as he came home, mumbling to himself, from the supermarket.

One Monday morning only a few days from the end of term, he caught a first-year boy searching under the counter in the Porter's Lodge. Ostensibly for a lost bag, but John Snyde knew better than to believe that story. The boy's intentions were clear from his face - theft, vandalism or some other means to disgrace John Snyde - already the boy had discovered the small bottle of Irish whiskey hidden underneath a pile of old newspapers, and his small eyes gleamed with malice and satisfaction. So thought my father; and, recognizing one of his young tormentors - a monkey-faced boy with an insolent manner - he set out to teach him a lesson.

Oh, I don't suppose he really hurt him. His loyalty to St Oswald's was bitter, but true; and although by now he loathed many of the individuals - the Bursar, the Head and especially the boys - the inst.i.tution itself still commanded his respect. But the boy tried to bl.u.s.ter; told my father, You can't touch me; demanded to be let out of the Lodge; and finally, in a voice that drilled into my father's head (Sunday night had been a late one, and this time, it showed), squalled, Let me out, let me out let me out let me out - until his cries alerted Dr Tidy in the nearby Bursar's office and he came running.

By this time the monkey-faced boy - Matthews, he was called - was crying. John Snyde was a big man, intimidating even when he was not enraged, and that day he had been very, very angry. Tidy saw my father's bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothing; saw the boy's tearful face and the wet pat ch spreading across his grey uniform trousers, and drew the inevitable conclusion. It was the last straw; John Snyde was summoned to the Headmaster's office that very morning, with Pat Bishop present (to ensure the fairness of the proceedings), and given a second, final warning.

The Old Head would not have done it. My father was convinced of that. Shakeshafte knew the pressures of working within a school; he would have known how to defuse the situation without causing a scene. But the new man was from the state sector; versed in political correctness and toytown activism. Besides, he was a weakling beneath his stern exterior, and this opportunity to establish himself as a strong, decisive leader (and at no professional risk) was too good to miss.

There would be an inquiry, he said. For the moment Snyde was to continue his duties, reporting every day to the Bursar for instructions, but was to have no contact at all with the boys. Any further incidents - the word was uttered with the prissy self-satisfaction of the churchgoing teetotaller - would result in immediate dismissal.

My father remained certain that Bishop was on his side. Good old Bishop, he said; wasted in that office job; should have been Head. Of course, my father would have liked him; that big, bluff man with the rugby-player's nose and the proletarian tastes. But Bishop's loyalties were to St Oswald's; much as he might sympathize with my father's grievances, I knew that when it came to a choice, the School had all his allegiance.

Still, he said, the holidays would give my father time to sort himself out. He'd been drinking too much, that he knew; he'd let himself go. But he was a good man at heart; he'd given loyal service to the School for nearly five years; he could get through this.

A typical Bishop phrase, that: You can get through this. He talks to the boys in the same soldierly way, like a rugby coach rallying the team. His conversation, like my father's, was riddled with cliches: You can get through this. Take it like a man. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

It was a language my father loved and understood, and for a time it rallied him. For Bishop's sake, he cut down on his drinking. He had his hair cut, and dressed with greater care. Conscious of the accusation of having let himself go, as Bishop put it, he even began to work out in the evenings, doing press-ups in front of the TV while I read a book and dreamed he was not my father.

Then, the holidays came, and the pressures on him diminished. His duties were equally reduced; there were no boys to make life unbearable for him; he mowed the lawns unhindered and patrolled the grounds alone, keeping a sharp watch out for spray-paint artists or stray dogs.

At these times I could believe my father was almost happy; keys in one hand, a can of ale in the other, he roamed his little empire secure in the knowledge that he had a place there - that of a small but necessary cog in a glorious machine. Bishop had said as much; therefore it must be true.

As for myself, I had other preoccupations. I gave Leon three clear days after the end of term before phoning him to arrange a meeting; he was friendly but in no hurry, and told me that he and his mother had some people coming to stay, and that he was expected to entertain them. That came as a blow, after everything I had so carefully planned; but I accepted it without complaint, knowing as I did that the best way to deal with Leon's occasional perverseness was to ignore it and to let him have his way.

'Are these people friends of your mother's?' I enquired, more to keep him talking than for information.

'Yeah. The Tynans and their kid. It's a bit of a drag, but Charlie and I have to rally round. You know, pa.s.s the cuc.u.mber sandwiches, pour the sherry, and all that.' He sounded regretful, but I couldn't shake the idea that he was smiling.

'Kid?' I said, with visions of a clever, cheery schoolboy who would eclipse me completely in Leon's eyes.