I don’t know what impelled me to go into the cloakroom on that first day. Perhaps I wanted to see what had changed. Perhaps I still thought, after all this time, that I might remember something new. Memory is a place of shifting sands, overgrown with creepers. But sometimes, you can still find a way to an almost forgotten place. Scents can sometimes help; and sounds. With me, it’s especially scents and sounds.
I bypassed the main entrance and went in by the side door. A sharp gust of April wind slammed the door behind me. The corridor was mostly clear; I recognized a familiar scent of old wood and furniture polish. The Middle School cloakroom was on the left, down a little flight of steps. I started down the steps, and a blast of sound emerged from below. The cloakroom had a high ceiling, which made the noise reverberate. And there were boys everywhere, pushing up and down the steps. A Master in a black gown was trying to keep order.
‘Keep to the left! Keep to the left!’
Of course, I didn’t know Scoones at the time. And of course, he was younger then. But you would have recognized him, Roy. The heightened complexion, stentorian voice. The eyes like chips of mica. The boys never had much respect for him, not even in the classroom, and here, on the steps to the cloakroom, he didn’t really stand a chance.
‘You, boy in the Murray House tie! I saw that! Who’s your Form Master?’
Of course I didn’t know it then, but Scoones never bothered to learn the boys’ names. Instead, he dwelt on details shared by dozens – if not hundreds – of boys. House ties; spectacles; colours blazers; Prefects’ gowns. As such, it was hardly surprising that his brief and violent outbursts were largely disregarded.
‘You, boy with the ginger hair! Why aren’t you wearing your School tie?’
I stared. The Master was glaring angrily at me from the locker room floor. Behind him, the cool morning sunlight angled through a strip of glass bricks near the ceiling. I remembered that undersea light filtering from the top of the room, and the feet of the passers-by, ghostly through the pebbled glass.
‘Well?’ said Scoones. ‘Where’s your tie?’
It took me a moment to realize, first, that he was talking to me, and second, that in the dim light of the staircase, my trouser suit and shirt combination might have looked something like the boys’ uniform.
‘I’m talking to you, boy!’ trumpeted Scoones. By now, several of the boys on the staircase around me had understood the Master’s mistake. Laughter buffeted the air.
‘Sir, that isn’t a boy, Sir!’
‘Don’t you know the difference?’
More of that mocking laughter. It was not, by and large, directed at me, but I was swept into it nevertheless. It broke against me like ocean waves. It mocked me in my brother’s voice. Scoones took a handful of furious steps and faced me on the stairway. Far from being apologetic, his face was congested with fury.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he shouted into my look of dismay. ‘This is not a gangway! Visitors take the Main Entrance!’
I managed to stammer something about having wanted to look around. This seemed to infuriate him even more, and his voice, already thunderous, seemed to fill the whole building. For a moment I was five again, in the belly of the whale, with the voice of Mr Smallface booming through the pipework.
‘This is a school, Madam, not a zoo! Go to the Main Entrance, and ask for the School Secretary!’
Yes, it must seem impossible to imagine me being afraid of Scoones. But Straitley, I was very young. I was unprepared for this. And the smell – the smell of the cloakroom – bleach and football boots and boys, as well as the darker underscent of something much more sinister – was just the same as it had been that afternoon, on my birthday, the day that Conrad disappeared; the day I could never remember.
I turned and fled on another wave of boisterous, juvenile laughter, and I wondered – not for the last time – whether accepting the job hadn’t been a dreadful mistake.
6
St Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys Academy
Michaelmas Term, September 5th, 2006
The first thing I did on this first day of the Michaelmas term was to check the site of the Gunderson Building. Nothing there has been disturbed; except that the gap in the chain-link fence has been mended with thick wire. Looking through the mesh, I think I can just see the bundle that, to the overly imaginative, might possibly look like a body. Since yesterday, the resemblance seems to have become less marked. Perhaps this is because yesterday was a day of mists and today is one of bright sunshine. In sunlight, everything looks better. The ominous shadow against the wall that looked so like a monster now looks a lot more innocuous. In fact, it seems more likely today that the bundle of rags and sticks by the pool is indeed nothing but rags and sticks, and that the old King Henry’s badge was simply there by coincidence. There is no sign the police have been here. Then again, why should they? La Buckfast has a tale to tell, and I have pledged to hear it. Perhaps she will call the police tonight. Perhaps she will call them tomorrow. In any case, the evidence has been there for a long time. Whatever remains must surely survive for a day or two longer.
What should I tell my Brodie Boys? Of course, they are in school today. But I doubt there will be any time for lengthy conversation. The first day of a new term is always a time of disruption, and now that our gates have been opened to girls, the possibility of a quiet Gauloise before class, or a leisurely cup of tea during Registration, has been drastically curtailed.
Fortunately, the new forms are segregated. Kitty Teague, the Head of French, is in charge of a form comprised entirely of girls, while I have the masculine counterpart. According to the new Head, sound academic studies suggest that girls perform better in segregated classes, while on a more social level, boys can benefit from the civilizing effect of girls. Our system is designed to take advantage of both, as well as giving the School a much-needed influx of new blood – and of course, the added fees will serve to pull the old ship off the rocks on which she currently finds herself.
Still, that doesn’t change how I feel. We love what we love, regardless. Harry Clarke taught me that, and although St Oswald’s chances of survival may be vastly improved by this injection of fresh talent, I cannot find it in me to embrace the change wholeheartedly. Ad astra per aspera. The rocky road leads to the stars. And if those rocks should prove too great, the Captain should go down with his ship.
Not that I am the Captain, of course. I am still the cabin boy, now grown whiskered, grey and old, like a sailor under a curse, doomed to sail forever beneath the same old and tattered flag. At lunchtime, sitting with my form, marking a set of grammar tests and eating a ham and cheese sandwich, I saw Allen-Jones looking in at the door. I could tell that he wanted to talk to me, but School protocol dictates that I should invite him to enter. Instead, I gave a dismissive smile, and turned back to my marking, hoping that he would be satisfied.
But Allen-Jones was never the type to take the hint. He stood there a moment longer, then knocked and came in, looking both anxious and determined.
I looked up from my marking once more.
‘Sir, do you have any news?’ he said.
I gave him a quizzical look. ‘News?’
‘News,’ he repeated. ‘Of the – you know. The B-O-D –’ He indicated my current 2S, sitting around the form room in groups. Some were eating their packed lunches. Others played chess, or cards, or read. I noticed with a slight pang that Allen-Jones’s erstwhile desk was taken by a nondescript boy called Tebbitt or Tibbett (my recall of boys’ names on the first day of term isn’t as good as it used to be), who was thoughtfully eating Hula Hoops while reading a battered copy of Viz.