Carrie gave her smoker’s laugh. ‘I told you Sinclair was a pussycat. And Scoones just wants to be Sinclair, like a vampire’s assistant who thinks that one day, if he toadies enough, he’ll get to be immortal. Good for you. You stood your ground. I think you’ll find things a whole lot easier from now on.’
I smiled again. ‘Now the only person I need to convince is Dominic.’
‘Is that your guy?’
I nodded. ‘He doesn’t believe in private schools. Thinks I’m going to end up like Scoones, an old bat in a dusty gown.’ I told her about Dominic, his disapproval of my job; his continued hope that I would leave at the end of the summer term. ‘I know he’s just being protective,’ I said. ‘It’s partly because he’s so much older than I am. But I can fight my own battles. I think today proved that.’
‘Sounds like you’re fighting on two fronts,’ she said. ‘Still, if he’s a good guy –’
‘He is,’ I said. ‘He really is.’
But even as I said so, I felt strangely uncertain. And for the first time that day I remembered my dream of the green door, and the voice from the grille, and that peculiar certainty that Dominic’s house was nothing but a piece of painted scenery. And I thought, what if he likes me weak? What if he likes me dependent? What if the only reason he wanted me in the first place was because he wanted someone to save? Books are filled with tales of knights in search of maidens to rescue. But none of those tales ever questioned the maiden’s need or desire to be saved. Stories show the maiden grateful and obedient. The knight’s job is to fight and be brave; hers is simply to be his reward. But what if the maiden chooses to fight the dragons on her own behalf? What happens to the brave knight then? And if he slays no dragons, then how do we know he’s a knight at all?
5
St Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys Academy
Michaelmas Term, September 12th, 2006
Excellent question, Ms Buckfast. And one that applies equally well to St Oswald’s Masters. Our identities are constructed from the small but significant ways in which we present ourselves to the world. Our suits; our academic robes. Our honours. Our pronouns, as Ben might say. Without them, who are we really? If I am not teaching a Latin class, can I be said to be a teacher at all? And how long will it take before my place at St Oswald’s vanishes altogether?
I begin to see that even at such a young age, La Buckfast was a live wire. I would have given a lot to have seen her standing in front of Scoones and Sinclair, wearing that red miniskirt. This begins to explain why Eric assumed that mute and gammon-faced aspect every time the subject of his new colleague arose in our conversations. Unpredictable, volatile, clever, and – worst of all – female, she must have represented everything he found intolerable.
In his place, I suspect that I would have enjoyed her disruptive influence, but Eric and I never saw eye to eye on the subject of subversion. The Tweed Jacket, though loyal, typically lacks ambition, and Eric was always a would-be Suit, although, like the vampire’s apprentice, he never managed to gain acceptance into the members -only crypt. St Oswald’s was more accepting, because – I say this with the greatest loyalty and affection – St Oswald’s was never a really first-rate grammar school. I can say this with impunity, although I would never allow an outsider to say so. The fact that La Buckfast ended up as Head here, rather than at King Henry’s, is a case in point. Not that I have any doubts as to the genius, vision and efficiency of La Buckfast; it is simply that, at King Henry’s, between its layers of old money, tradition and academic excellence, she would have found the way to the top all the more difficult to find. And yet, I begin to think that she is capable of anything. And as I await my doctor’s all-clear with growing impatience and boredom, her visits are all that sustain me. Her visits, and the window to the past with which her stories provide me – a window that I find myself increasingly eager to open.
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ she tells me when I express anxiety for my lessons, my form, my Brodie Boys – and most of all, the situation evolving in and around the projected Gunderson Building. ‘No one is irreplaceable. Concentrate on your recovery, Roy, and let St Oswald’s take care of itself.’
That’s all very well, I tell her. But I have had half a dozen days off in over thirty-five years at the School, and most of those have been this week. During that time, who knows what mischief has been wrought in the Bell Tower? Plastic-topped desks reintroduced; dead plants replaced by living ones; The Foghorn covering my classes – or even worse, Dr Devine.
He called by yesterday, you know. Although he and I have been on less chilly terms in recent months, I was nevertheless surprised. I had not considered Sourgrape Devine the type to check on an absent colleague. He was more likely to use the opportunity afforded by my indisposition to annexe my Departmental Office. Dr Devine has long since been a campaigner for the removal of Latin from the curriculum, and only the strength of our shared dislike of last year’s new New Head united us for a brief time. Now he was back to his usual self; brittle; officious; a Suit through and through. Ah, well. Times change. Tempora mutantur, and so on.
He called by on his way home from work, still carrying his briefcase. He greeted me in typically curt style, saying; ‘Straitley. Still alive?’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Apparently.’
He gave the sharp, percussive sniff, which, in his nasal repertoire, often denotes disapproval. ‘Overdoing it a bit, eh? I thought you were looking peaky. Well, if you will persist in trying to run a department single-handedly while simultaneously trying to hold back the tide of progress –’
‘Simply a precaution,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back at my desk in a day or two.’
That sniff again. ‘Well, don’t rush back. You’re not as young as you were, you know.’
‘I know you’re no mathematician, Devine, but that applies to all of us.’ Damn the man. He’s a shade younger than I am, that’s all. But the fact that he sometimes plays badminton at weekends (as well as having a younger wife) seems to have given him the idea that he is a comparative stripling. ‘Who’s covering my classes?’ I said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re having to do some teaching, for a change.’
Devine made with the nose again. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Straitley,’ he said, unconsciously echoing the Head. ‘Nothing’s going to grind to a halt just because a few classes miss Latin. In fact, they’ll probably appreciate the extra time spent on something else.’
‘Something else?’
‘Well, if there’s no other Classicist –’
‘I sent in a whole week’s lesson plans. I expect my cover to follow them. No sneaking in an extra French or German class under the door, do you understand me, Devine?’
He made a face. ‘Always so dramatic,’ he said. ‘I suppose it never occurred to you that your colleagues might be concerned for you?’
‘What colleagues?’
‘Anyone,’ said Devine, his nose turning a little pink. ‘I mean, you’re a long-standing member of the Department. Obviously, colleagues will feel some concern for your well-being.’