Part 19 (1/2)

Below us, the voices, all blurred together like bonfire smoke. Above us now, the Bell Tower with its overlooking balcony. In front of us, the well separating Bell Tower and Chapel roof; a stinking siphon-shaped depression, lined with gutters and pigeons' nests, which sloped down to the narrow gullet between the buildings.

'Your dad” echoed Leon.

Then came a sound from the rooftop behind us. I turned and saw a man on the walkway, blocking our escape. Fifty feet of roof lay between us; though the walkway was broad, the man shook and faltered as if on a tightrope, hands clenched, face stiff with concentration as he inched forward to intercept us.

'Stay there,' he said. 'I'm coming to get you.'

It was John Snyde.

He couldn't have seen our faces, then. We were both in shadow. Two ghosts on the rooftop - we could make it, I knew. The well that separated Chapel from Bell Tower was deep, but its throat was narrow - five feet at its widest point. I'd jumped it myself more times than I could remember, and even in the dark I knew the risk was small. My father would never dare follow us there. We could scramble up the roof's incline, balance along the Bell Tower ledge and jump on to the balcony, as I'd done before. From there, I knew a hundred places for us to hide.

I did not think beyond that. Once more in my mind we were Butch and Sundance; freeze-framed in the moment; for ever heroes. All we needed was to make the jump.

I like to think I hesitated. That my actions were in some way determined by thought, and not the blind instinct of an animal on the run. But everything after that exists in a kind of vacuum. Perhaps that was the very moment when I ceased to dream; perhaps in that instant I experienced all the dream-time I was ever likely to need; an end to dreams for the rest of my life.

At the time, though, it felt like waking up. Waking up all the way, after years of dreaming. Thoughts shot across my mind like meteors against a summer sky.

Leon, laughing, his mouth against my hair.

Leon and me, on the ride-on mower.

Leon and Francesca, whom he had never loved.

St Oswald's, and how close - how very close - I had come to winning the game.

Time stopped. In s.p.a.ce, I hung like a cross of stars. On the one side, Leon. On the other, my father. As I said, I like to think I hesitated.

Then I looked at Leon.

Leon looked back.

We jumped.

QUEEN St Oswald's Grammar School for Boys Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot.

AND HERE IT IS AT LAST, IN ALL ITS KILLING GLORY. ANARCHY has descended on St Oswald's like a plague; boys missing; lessons disrupted; many of my colleagues out of School. Devine has been suspended pending further inquiry (this means I'm back in my old office, though rarely has a victory given me less joy); and Grachvogel; and Light. Still more are being questioned, including Robbie Roach, who is naming colleagues left, right and centre in the hope of diverting suspicion away from himself.

Bob Strange has made it clear that my own presence here is merely an emergency measure. According to Allen-Jones, whose mother is on the Board of Governors, my future was discussed at some length at the last Governors' meeting, with Dr Pooley, whose son I 'a.s.saulted', calling for my immediate suspension. In the light of recent events (and most of all in the absence of Bishop), there was no one else to speak for me, and Bob has implied that only our exceptional circ.u.mstances have deferred this perfectly legitimate course of action.

I swore Allen-Jones to secrecy about the matter, of course -- which means it will be all over the Middle School by now.

And to think we were so anxious about a School Inspection only a few weeks ago. Now, we are a School in crisis. The police are still here, and show no sign of ever being ready to leave. We teach in isolation. No one answers the phones. Waste-bins remain unemptied, floors unswept. Shuttleworth, the new Porter, refuses to work unless the School provides him with alternative accommodation. Bishop, who would have dealt with it, is no longer in any position to do so.

As for the boys, they too sense an imminent collapse. Sutcliff came into registration with a pocketful of firecrackers, causing the chaos you'd expect. In the world outside, there is little confidence in our ability to survive this crisis. A school is only ever as good as its last set of results, and unless we can pull back this disastrous term, I have little hope for this year's A-levels and GCSEs.

My fifth-form Latin set could probably manage, given that they finished the syllabus last year. But the Germans have suffered terribly this term, and the French, who are now missing two staff members - Tapi, who refuses to come back until her case has been resolved, and Pearman, still absent on compa.s.sionate leave - have little likelihood of catching up their lost ground. Other departments have similar problems; in some subjects whole modules of coursework have not been delivered, and there is no one to take charge. The Head spends most of his time shut up in his office. Bob Strange has taken over Bishop's duties, but with limited success.

Fortunately, Marlene is still here, running things. She looks less glamorous now, more businesslike, her hair pulled back from her angular face in a no-nonsense bun. She has no time for gossip nowadays; she spends most of the day fielding complaints from parents and questions from the Press, wanting to know the status of the police investigation. Marlene, as always, handles it well - of course, she's tougher than most. Nothing throws her. When her son died, causing a rift within her family that never healed, we gave Marlene a job and a vocation, and ever since, she has given St Oswald's her total loyalty.

Part of that was Bishop's doing. It explains her devotion to him and the fact that she chose to work here, of all places. It can't have been easy. But she never let it show. In fifteen years, she's never had so much as a day's absence. For Pat's sake. Pat, who pulled her through.

Now he is in hospital, she tells me; he had some kind of an attack last night, probably brought on by stress. Managed to drive himself to Casualty, then collapsed in the waiting room and was transferred to a cardiac ward for observation.

'Still,' she said, 'he's in good hands. If only you'd seen him last night--' She paused, looking sternly into the middle distance, and I realized with some concern that Marlene was close to tears. 'I should have stayed,' she saidh 'But he wouldn't let me.'

'Yes. Hum.' I turned away, embarra.s.sed. Of course it's been a fairly open secret for years that Pat has more than a simply professional relations.h.i.+p with his secretary. Most of us couldn't care less about this. Marlene, however, has always maintained the facade, probably because she still thinks that a scandal might damage Pat. The fact that she had alluded to it now - even obliquely - showed more than anything else how far things have come.

In a school like St Oswald's, nothing is insignificant; and I felt a sudden acute lurch of grief for the ones of us who are still left; the old guard; valiantly keeping to our posts while the future marches inexorably over us.

'If Pat leaves, I won't stay,' she said at last, turning her emerald ring round and around her middle finger. 'I'll take a job in a solicitor's office or something. If not, I'll retire - in any case I'll be sixty next year--' That, too, was news. Marlene has been forty-one for as long as I can remember.

'I've also considered the retirement option,' I said. 'By the end of the year I'll have scored my Century - that is, unless old Strange gets his way--'

'What? Quasimodo, leave the Bell Tower?'

'It had crossed my mind.' Over these past few weeks, in fact, it has done more than cross it. 'It's my birthday today,' I told her. 'Can you believe it? Sixty-five years old.' She smiled, a little sadly. Dear Marlene. 'Where did those birthdays go?'

With Pat gone, Bob Strange took this morning's Middle School a.s.sembly. I wouldn't have recommended it; but with so many of the management team either absent or unavailable, Bob has decided to take it upon himself to bring our s.h.i.+p back into calmer waters. Rather a mistake, I thought at the time. Still, there's no arguing with some people.

Of course, we all know that it isn't Bob's fault that Pat has been suspended. No one blames him for that; but the boys dislike the effortless ease with which he has slid into Bishop's position. Bishop's office, always open to anyone who needed him, is now shut. A buzzer device like the one on Devine's door has been installed. Detentions and other punishments are dealt with bloodlessly and efficiently from this administrative hub, but the humanity and warmth that made Pat Bishop so acceptable is noticeably lacking in Strange.

The boys sense this and resent it, finding ever more ingenious ways to show up his failings in public. Unlike Pat, our Bob is not a man of action. A handful of firecrackers thrown under the Hall platform during a.s.sembly served to demonstrate this; with the result that the Middle School spent half the morning sitting in silence in the Hall while Bob waited for someone to confess.

With Pat Bishop, the culprit would have owned up within five minutes, but then, most boys aim to please Pat Bishop. Bob Strange, with his cold manner and cartoon n.a.z.i tactics, is fair game.

'Sir? When's Mr Bishop coming back?'

'I said ”In silence”, Sutcliff, or you will go and stand outside the Headmaster's office.'

'Why, sir? Does he know?'

Bob Strange, who has not taught Middle School for over a decade, has no idea of how to deal with such a frontal attack. He does not realize how his crisp manner betrays his insecurity; how shouting simply makes things worse. He may be a fine administrator, but in the field of pastoral care, he's shocking.

'Sutcliff, you're in detention.'

'Yes, sir.'

I would have mistrusted Sutcliff s grin; but Strange didn't know him, and simply went on digging himself deeper. 'What's more,' he said, 'if the boy who threw those crackers doesn't stand up right now, then the whole of the Middle School will be in detention for a month.'

A month? It was an impossible threat. Mirage-like, it descended on the a.s.sembly Hall, and a low, slow sound rippled through the Middle School.

'I shall count to ten,' announced Strange. 'One. Two.'

Another ripple as Strange demonstrated his mathematical skills.

Sutcliff and Allen-Jones looked at each other.

'Three. Four.'

The boys stood up.